THE LIBRARY

OF
THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES

THE

SUTTEE OF SAFA

A Hindoo Romance

BY

DULCIE DEAMER

G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY
G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

The Suttee of Soft

PR

6007

CONTENTS

PAGE

PART I. SAFA COMES TO DELHI 5

PART II. KAMA DEVA 65

PART III. THE EFFIGY 97

PART IV. THE SIGNAL 155

PART V. ASOF 203

PART VI. THE SUTTEE . 245

1523784

THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

PART I
SAFA COMES TO DELHI

IT was the last hour of the night. The great
milky star of the morning was paling in the
Eastern sky. Upon the kine in a hundred in-
ner courts and upon the men and women, sleeping
out of doors, fell the refreshing coolness of the
dawn. The ripening fruit hung heavily from the
weighted branches of the trees and the silvery dew
sparkled upon the freshly opened flowers in the
palace garden.

The serving folk within the marble house of the
King were already astir. An elephant, cruelly torn
by a tiger in the last beast fight, trumpeted with
pain. The Persian pussies of the Zenana pestered
the girl who fed them, for milk warm from the
cow. An army of sweepers and water-carriers —
dwarfed nightmare creatures of the half-light,
swarmed over the inlaid pavements.

5

6 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

Hundreds of tiny household fires began to smoke.
A hunger-sharpening smell of hot bread was spread
abroad. All over the city, the followers of the
Prophet, turning to the East, prostrated them-
selves, proclaiming that "there is no god but God."
In the temples, worshippers of Ganesh and Vishnu,
Shiva and Hanuman and fifty others, offered sac-
rifice with a tortured squealing of sacred music.
The Parsi, his mouth and nose covered with a
cloth, adored the holy flame upon the altar. From
the little stone and plaster building a bell tolled,
slight, spiritual and poignant, for by the Christian's
count the day was Sunday. Akbar, the King, was
tolerant of all worship. Though suckled in the
faith of Mohammed, he founded a new religion
called the Divine Faith and was himself adored as a
ray of the Supreme Soul of the Universe. It was
from curiosity only that he sent to Goa for Portu-
guese priests.

A crimson glow, darker than the color of fire,
burned low in the East. The great, sullen,
gory sun had come from a fair birth-bed of
faint, shining gold. The early promise of a beau-
tiful serenity was unfulfilled; anger and red
menace flamed in the sky. The day, that had
been so gloriously heralded, came dyed in blood
and bearing a strange portent of sullen
wrath.

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 7i

One man in Delhi, from the roof of the marble
house of Akbar, saw the omen and understood it.

II

Night within doors in India is stagnant, even
when one sleeps on a wide satin mattress with no
coverings. A Persian cat, snowy as the mountains
of Kashmir, stepped cautiously upon the bare breast
of the sleeper and Dil-Khusha, the favorite daugh-
ter of Akbar, became conscious of the purring
pressure and awoke.

The moisture of heat was at the roots of her
hair. Fretfully she pushed the warm cat away. It
was soft, heavy and stubborn after the nature of
its kind and went unwillingly. Dil-Khusha was fif-
teen and very beautiful, with the youthful fresh-
ness of newly blossomed virginity. She was fair
and pale-skinned; with eyes and hair of jet. From
her Rajput mother she had inherited the character-
istic smallness and daintiness of Hindu women; the
inclination of her eyebrows to join; the determined
will and the strong set of her childish jaw. But
Dil-Khusha was not a child. She lay in luxurious
ease, her bosom half-revealed by the diaphanous
drapery that clothed her. Everyone talked of her
beauty and she was glad. In the Zenana, beauty is

8 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

a woman's strength ; her weapon and her happiness.

Curtains of heavy silk, spangled with silver tin-
sel, hid the walls. The couchant cat with half-
closed eyes evolved wicked schemes for the murder
of fat palace pigeons. In his heart he was as cruel
as an Afghan. Through the screen of pierced
ebony-work that let in filtered light and air, the
blue-gray of the morning was visible.

Suddenly the girl sat up, so quickly that it was
almost a spring and clapped her hands sharply. In
a moment two young Hindu girls ran in, one
clothed in crude green and the other in cruder red.
Gold flowers hung from their ears and gilt ankle-
sheaths three inches high were clasped around their
ankles.

"Madri — Kunti, I wish to dress. Quickly now !"

"Wilt thou not go first to the bath, lady?" in-
quired Kunti of the green skirt.

"No," replied Dil-Khusha decisively.

Wonder descended upon Kunti. After an air-
less Indian night, cool water is a blessing from the
gods, a balm, a luxury. The Zenana was a place of
much bathing.

Madri of the red skirt, her hands busy, seemed
unconcerned. As the loose robe slipped from Dil-
Khusha, leaving her unembarrassed, nude and fresh
as dew on a lotus leaf, Kunti broke into exclama-
tions of frankest admiration.

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 9

"Ah! Why did not the Creator bestow on me
such a shape? What a skin — and I, I am brown
as the bark of a tree. What a bosom for the hand
of a lover ! Surely Lakshmi wast thy mother. Thou
hast indeed sucked beauty with her milk."

Dil-Khusha, the petted child of the great Zenana,
was indifferent to this rhapsody. People had
spoken like this since she was eleven.

"Do not talk so much," she ordered.

But Kunti was brimming over with the details
of overnight palace gossip.

"They have found Sita's monkey that has been
lost four days," she began.

"What monkey?" said Dil-Khusha.

"The one that swallowed Sita's topaz earrings.
They found him floating in the great tank. He
had been dead for several days."

"And the earrings — were they in his stomach?"
inquired Madri, eagerly.

"Yes, of course," replied Kunti with conviction.
"It was his greediness that killed him."

Dil-Khusha thrust her feet into slippers sewn
with silver spangles. Stepping to the center of the
room, she turned to Madri:

"I will not have my hair bound yet. Give me
the veil; that will hide it."

With a turn of the arm she enfolded herself in
a clinging, transparent cloth, gilt-bordered.

10 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

"Stay here," she said, and the gesture of her
small hand was emphatic and final.

Kunti and Madri were alone. Through the
screenwork they could see the first flush of dawn
in the East.

"What devil possesses her? These last three
mornings she is up before the court-sweepers; will
not bathe; will not braid her hair; and is out wan-
dering in the lemon-tree garden like a cat seeking
for birds. It is madness."

This was from Kunti. Madri smiled as if gifted
with superior knowledge.

"Who knows? All women are mad when a man
looks at them from the corner of his eye."

"A man ! There are no men here."

"Chut! Desire is higher than the highest wall."

"But how? We have eyes."

"Have we not also hands? Hush, I will tell
thee a tale. On a day that is past as I, carrying a
message to Chunda, the sweetstuff seller, stood close
by the gate of the Durbar Court, a man spoke to
me. As he spoke he put something of value into
my hand. He asked questions and I answered ac-
cording to my knowledge. Thou and I know that
the Princess Dil-Khusha goes sometimes to the sum-
mer-house near the wall before the dew dries. All
Delhi might know that; it would not harm a dog.
In the next dawning the Princess, led by fancy,

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 11

went early to the summer-house. Thou knowest
there is a level roof that overlooks the lemon-tree
garden, also the wall and the space beyond. On
that morning I chanced to stand there with my red
veil covering my head. The red of my veil was
bright against the white of the marble like a scarlet
poppy fallen on white wool. Even from the space
beyond the wall it must have been seen. I stood
there a certain time and then came down."

Kunti, all ears and eyes, gasped with interest.
They were seated on the floor, knee touching knee.

"Who is he ? Dost thou know ?"

"Why did the gods give me wits? Come
closer."

There was a whisper. Madri's mouth was close
to Kunti 's gold ear-flower and then came a squeak
from Kunti.

"Not he! He is a Rajput — a worshipper of
Vishnu."

Madri laughed.

"Bah ! If he worshipped the Christian's god, who
died, it is nothing now. But this man is indeed a
Rajput of the Rajputs," declared the girl with cau-
tious secrecy.

"Canst thou see aught from that roof?" inquired
Kunti.

"I have been there each morning but I see little.
tThe man who talked with me by the Durbar Gate

12 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

holds his horse in the space beyond the wall; I am
certain it is he."

"Then Dil-Khusha and this Rajput are together
in the summer-house? Dost thou think she loves
him?"

"Didst thou not feel her quiver under thy hands
whilst thou wast fastening her robe? She was im-
patient for his embrace. Such as she are made for
love, and when the right man comes they are eager
for his caresses."

"Let us go up on the roof," suggested Kunti;
"we may get some glimpse of him. None will know.
There is only Bhima here."

Bhima, the Persian cat, was cleaning the rose-
leaf pinkness of his toes with his grating tongue.
The two girls, their fingers linked, went out softly.
After a few moments Bhima arose and departed,
leaving the room empty. He, too, had his schemes.

The lemon-tree garden lay between the outer-
most enclosing wall of the palace area and the tall,
blind walls of the Zenana. The garden was a nar-
row wilderness of lemon trees and a tangle of sweet-
scented yellow roses. Against the outer wall had
been built a flat-topped summer-house of marble.
The largest bushes, covered with blossoms of
creamy yellow, pressed close to the screened sides
of the summer-house.

In the summer-house was Dil-Khusha, a small,

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 13

shapely creature with a face of alluring and seduc-
tive charm. She was seated upon the floor, with
her veil half slipping from her. Her heart was flut-
tering as if in panic and her fingers were cold with
nervousness. Three mornings ago in this little
rose-walled room there had appeared a sudden ap-
parition. She had met it with terror and a flare of
indignation. Then her eyes had fallen before the
admiration in the man's face. Quickly she had
veiled herself, but not too closely.

On the next morning, after dreaming of him
through a whole night, she was there again, know-
ing he would come, but telling herself that he would
not. The soft, bold words of that meeting had
shaken her with quivering throes of exultant joy.
Outwardly she had been timid and aloof, but be-
neath it a wild wish had thrilled her. She longed
for him to take her in his arms and clasp her
tightly to him. On that day had come the certainty
that she loved him. And hers was no longer the
love of a child. She waited breathlessly, knowing
that when he came and laid his hand upon her, her
quickened womanhood would yield to him all that
he desired.

With the dawn came a heavily cloaked figure
riding a noble bay horse. The rider's white, shroud-
like cloak was wrapped closely about him, as though
for protection against the coolness of the morning.

14 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

A bare-footed sayce in plain livery trotted by the
bridle. The stallion carried himself like a Maha-
rajah among horses. Prone figures, like corpses
wrapped in grave-cloths, were on the silent thresh-
olds and at the sides of the roadway. A single
branch weighted with fruit thrust itself over the
stone wall. A skeleton leper slept on the naked
earth. At a touch the bay horse sidled up to the
wall until the stirrup scraped the stone, then he
checked himself and stood as immovable as a steel
pillar. His rider, standing erect upon the saddle,
put his hands on the coping. With a sudden spring
and a strong effort he gained the height. The
finely trained Arabian horse did not move until the
sayce led him quickly across to the shadow of a
house yard enclosure, clay-built and whitened with
lime. The place was a lodging of loose dancing
girls, and wine could be had there. The presence
of a noble horse and his groom near such a house
could cause no comment. The passerby would grin
behind his beard, praying that he too might some
day be rich.

The sayce, squatting under his horse's nose, was
aware of a red flicker high up on a parapetted roof.
He noted a green flicker also and wondered, but
the girl had been heavily bribed. She would not
betray her mistress. He had done his work too
well for that.

SAP A COMES TO DELHI 15

The cloaked rider had dropped from the wall-
top to the roof of a yellow marble summer-house
five feet below. An unbalustraded flight of steps
ran down into the rose bushes. At the bottom of
the flight Rajah Adhiraj cast off the shrouding
cloak and among the yellow roses he stood like a
tall young god of love. But this god was wide
across the shoulders, dark-skinned and strong-
jawed, bred of a line of righting kings. He wore
no jewels, save those on the head of a long dagger
that hung by his side. It was a madness beyond
madness for him to be there.

Advancing eagerly, the young man came to the
cool threshold of the summer-house. The passion
of a lover and the keenness of a hunter gave him an
exquisite sensation as though he had drunk sweet
wine. Without pausing he went in quickly and de-
terminedly. Dil-Khusha had heard him coming;
first upon the stair, then through the parting of
the bushes. Now a hot and cold painfulness laid
hold of her; her heart stopped suddenly and then
leaped like a spurred horse. She was standing
veiled, both hands clutched together on her breast.
Through the fineness of the muslin veil she could
see him where he stood.

Adhiraj was not three feet from the small, thinly-
veiled figure with little silvery slippers and much-
ringed childish hands — hands that clutched each

16 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

other tremblingly. The desire to take her in his
arms rose in him like a hot flood.

"Hast thou no word for me, Heart's Delight?"

At the sound of his voice she quivered with emo-
tion, but her answer came timid and formal — the
answer of Zenana training.

"I — I fear it is an immodesty to speak with thee
alone in this manner."

But the man beside her, so near, would not take
denial.

"Am I no more to thee than that?"

His hand fell lightly upon one of hers. He did
not speak. Under that touch her hand, soft, warm
and tremulous, yielded instantly to the desire of his.
She was glowing from head to foot ; mute and sud-
denly pliant to his will. But a frailness, a purity
like the untouched bloom of flowers held him from
her.

They stood very close together in the summer-
house. The sun had risen and the light, filtering
through the carved, cream-colored marble, netted
the floor with faint, fretwork patterns. The place
was very quiet, but the hour was perilous.

The man held the girl's hand in his own. He
spoke in a passionate whisper:

"I have this precious jewel, thy hand; it is like
a smooth pearl. There is but one thing more —
that I may see thy face."

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 17

She could not deny him. The pressure in his
voice was like a force enveloping her. Slowly she
raised the veil — the shrine of maidenhood and wed-
ded chastity — and held it from her. Never had she
stood thus before any man save her father. She
glowed, looking steadily at the pavement, feeling
his gaze like naked heat. After a long silent mo-
ment Adhiraj spoke again.

"By the gods, thou art perfect! Thou wast
surely the first-born of thy mother. I fear to touch
thee lest thou shouldst break under my touch like
the blossoms of peaches, but my soul and body cry
for thee. Why wilt thou not look in my eyes, Dil-
Khusha?"

Coquetry stirred in the girl; a coquetry that was
hungry for the man's embrace. She half veiled her-
self.

"My lord has seen enough," she replied de-
murely.

"Dil-Khusha!"

He had both her hands in his grip and for the
first time she was facing her lover fully. The mo-
ment had come.

"Dost thou love me?"

"Yes," she whispered tensely.

It was unusually still in the summer-house. The
two who were in it might have been one, for the
young man had the girl pressed close to him, her

18 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

slim arms were about his neck and for the first time
a man's lips were upon hers. The solid earth
seemed melting beneath them. In the glow
of golden light that filtered through a net-work of
roses and marble he held her in his arms
while she yielded the virginity of her lips to
his.

Then Dil-Khusha felt again the pavement under
her feet and she was aware that she was in the
little domed house of stone, with the damp of the
garden tangle discoloring its bases and tiny trans-
parent lizards haunting the walls. For joy or sor-
row she was a woman now and her sorrow and
her joy lay in the hands of the man who had wak-
ened her womanhood with his lips. That man, as
he'held her, felt strong new sensations. The ancient
Rajput reverence for their own women flamed in
him and from the moment of that all-yielding, child-
pure kiss he could have fallen before her as before
a goddess in a shrine. The Rajput blood was red
in her veins, too, and he knew his love and hers
were united until death.

"Dost thou love me indeed?" asked Dil-Khusha,
with her head upon his breast. "Oh, my lord, I am
no more than a child."

"Thou shalt be the mother of my children if the
gods think me worthy — my wife."

And the girl who clung to him whispered very

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 19

low against his heart: "them art my husband, my
beloved."

Far away the faint throb of a drum was heard.
A dead man was being carried out to the place of
burning, his widow following. The pyre was
builded for the living and the dead.

Presently Adhiraj spoke again.

"To-day, in the Durbar, I will ask thy father for
thee."

Dil-Khusha's arms about him seemed to tighten.

"Thou dost fear he will refuse me, Heart's De-
light? Perhaps he may; it is in the lap of the
Great One. But by the blood of my fathers I will
take thee to my heart though a thousand men in
armor barred the way!"

Then he besought her gently: "Wilt thou go
with me if it should be against thy father's word?"

"What is a wife if she follows not her husband?
Thy will is my will and when thou callest me I
am there."

The sun was higher. An indefinable unrest was
all about them; the stir of numberless folk awaken-
ing to the manifold ways of life — a mosaic of
sounds. A premonition of danger aroused them.
i The bright patches of sunshine that had widened on
the floor were more ominous than blood. Were the
gardeners and water-sprinklers already in the gar-
den?

20 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

Dil-Khusha, kneeling and listening, heard the
rustling of the bushes; then a silence, and soon
came the dulled sound of the ring of a horse's
hoofs.

Ill

The same sun that had shot a myriad bright
arrows through the fretwork of the garden-house
in the early morning now stood high above the river
Jumma. Basking in its warm rays the buffaloes,
uncouth and gross, like beasts fashioned by a child
from lumps of putty, appeared to feel some added
stir of pleasure as they took their mud baths along
the river's edge.

Back from the river was waste land: a handful
of palm trees, the bare feeding grounds of the buf-
faloes, whereon were weeds, broken earthenware
and tent-shelters, where nondescript beings — scare-
crows of bones and rags, were housed. Dominat-
ing the bareness of the dusty growth-tangle, the
crisscrossing foot-tracks and fronting the wide ex-
panse of sleepy-sliding water, a tall, turreted white-
ness of hewn stone rose in chastity, like the rising
of the pale moon. It was the riverward face of the
palace. The arch of a great central window, set
in tracery, delicate as ivory carving, overlooked the
waste spaces and the crowd that was gathered below

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 21

it. The faces of the people were turned to the
window. They were all poor folk, many of them
clad cheaply in cotton cloth, flimsy as a spider's
mesh. There were some women in the gathering.
Most of these were anxious-eyed with sick babies
wrapped close in their veils or with blind and dis-
torted children clinging to them. One woman, car-
ried on a string bed, screamed that an evil spirit
had paralyzed her and was holding her down.

A brazen gong within the palace thundered. Im-
mediately the crowd went down upon its knees
among the weeds, the broken pottery and the dry
buffalo dung. Some prostrated themselves. It wTas
as though the shrine doors were thrown open and
the idol exhibited. Only the crows in the palm-
tops were indifferent. "Ca-a, ca-a-a," they said,
derisively.

In the balcony of the open window stood a man
who bowed himself to the east, worshipping in a
loud voice. There were others behind him, display-
ing the glittering sparkle of cut gems on rich ma-
terials. Akbar was adoring the sun and those on
their knees in the plain were adoring Akbar. To
them he was a tangible god. Unheeded, a knot
of pariah dogs fought for a dead fowl.

Again the gong boomed. The shrine doors had
closed. A babel arose in the plain. The woman
on the string bed, who was possessed of a strong

22 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

hysteria, cried that the devil had left her. She
then arose and walked. Immediately she became
the center of a crowd. "The Great One looked on
her and she can walk," a voice cried shrilly.

"I would offer him cakes steeped in clarified but-
ter if there were any priest to receive them," said
another.

"What foolishness! Dost thou think he hath
need of thy cakes?"

"Pali hath been eight days as weak as a babe
since this devil held her," said another of the women
who were chattering all together. The piteous-eyed
mothers with the ailing babies stole mutely away.
One, a fourteen-year-old girl, wept softly. "It is
the will of the gods. He — my son, must die." And
the tears crept down her childish face, now con-
vulsed in a grief-stricken agony far beyond her
years.

Before the central gate of the palace a great
square lay like a level pavemented plain. It was the
promenade of fifty elephants; the vortex of trade,
news and scandal; the mouth and ears of Delhi.
Thither drifted the morning worshippers of Akbar,
where they were quickly sucked into the maelstrom
of life.

A sweetmeat seller, surrounded with trays,
vended green pistachio slabs flecked with gold tin-
sel. It was "the favorite food of the Great One's

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 23

Zenana." Men with trained dogs and monkeys led
them up and down seeking an audience. A girl
danced, balancing a brass plate on a stick, while the
musician twanged a one-stringed instrument. For-
tune-tellers abounded, and snake-charmers, each
leading a tame mongoose, jostled one another.

An elephant, draped to the ground in blue velvet
with sweeping silver fringes, strode through. Back-
ward fell the folk before his swinging trunk. , He
created a commotion like an eddy of wind in a
flower bed. Wearers of red-veil flowers and yellow-
veil flowers, white turbans, green turbans and rain-
bow-twisted turbans swarmed everywhere. Beg-
gars swathed in bandages dragged themselves a few
feet in the rear of the crowd, screaming for mercy.
A stripped athlete ran alongside slapping his chest.
Hideous naked ascetics, like famished wild beasts,
begged for their gods, almost clutching the velvet
harness of the elephant, and the sweetmeat seller
waved forward a basket of sugar balls. A small,
shrewd eye observed this fact and the elephant, tak-
ing a dozen in one trunk-reach, strode onward.
From the silver-roofed howdah came a sudden scat-
tering of coins and the hidden Amir and the
mahout and the shameless thief of sugar balls
passed mountainously beneath the towered gate-
way.

A woman squatted among little heaps of mari-

,24 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

/golds that were more vivid than the color of
oranges. Her son sat by her feet. They were
strangers lately arrived.

"What is behind all that?" asked the little boy,
| pointing to the arched elephant gate with its pol-
ished whiteness of mother-of-pearl and to the small
gilded cupolas, spike-topped.

"That is the house of the Great One, who holds
life and death and gives justice."

"Is he a god? Has he an elephant like the one
with the beautiful blue coat?"

Maybe he hath a hundred; who knows!"

"I wish I had five hundred. I would be a Rajah
with a full belly."

"Hush — hush. Some pots hold milk, some water,
such as we must weep and be hungry; the Great
Ones know nothing of tears."

The people parted again. A black-painted palan-
quin, with closed panels, came swiftly through.
Eight coolies shouldered the poles. An old man,
stringy-sinewed as a caravan dog, dour and whis-
kered like a son of the fighting caste, went with
them. Swiftly they passed to the shadow of the
giant gateway arch and swiftly the black palan-
quin was borne across the broad marble threshold of
the Great King. A baby boy, playing at his
mother's ankles, saw the dark thing pass and
screamed in fright at the sight of it. But his

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 25

mother gazed after the palanquin in speechless won-
der and amazement.

"Who can it be?" she queried eagerly. Only a
dubious shake of the head answered her.

IV

When the god Twastri created woman, he

Took among other things :

The undulating curve of the serpent,

The light shivering of the grass blade,

The velvet of the flowers,

The lightness of the feather,

The inconstancy of the wind,

The vanity of the peacock,

The hardness of the diamond,

The cruelty of the tiger,

The chill of the snow,

The cackling of the parrot,

And the cooing of the turtle dove.

Hindu Legend.

Dil-Khusha sat for a long while in the summer-
house. It was a holy place to her. To sit there
was almost to feel the pressure of his arms about
her, though lightly as a dream enclasps, while he
had held her with his full strength. She drew out
an absurd dagger — three inches of slight steel in a
sheath of ivory, whereon were delicately carved, in-
credibly minute elephants with garnet sparks for

26 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

eyes. It had been a toy of her mother's. The
daughters of Rajput Kings loved trinkets with a
sharp, secret tooth, and that tiny blade could put
an end to all things by a stab in breast or throat.
Dil-Khusha, fingering it, knew with a thrill of
pleasure that she also possessed the courage to take
her own life at her lover's will or need, calmly, like
the Rajput women who had gone before. The
story of them, told in the dusk, had filled her with
marveling at their strength of spirit and a sickness
when she thought of the blood and the pain. That
was yesterday, when as a child of fifteen she played
with a Persian cat.

Reluctantly she arose from the cool pavement and
came very slowly through the garden. The grass
was wet from the dribbling water-skin and the earth
paths had been swept with a stiff broom. The girl
was joyously alert and beautifully happy. Sud-
denly her pigeons, with white satin breasts, de-
scended on her in a tumult of fluttering friendli-
ness. She stood still until they were all bobbing
tamely about her feet. It was surely an omen of
happiness. The perfect doves, corn-fattened and
confident, had come suddenly upon her like white
joys. A soft grumble of cooing came from the
ground. Dil-Khusha made a little move and saw
something else. One of the pigeons, with bright
drops of blood upon its ruffled plumage, lay un-

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 27

noticed upon the earth. A small, feather-clad life,
that had never known hunger, had ended in a tiny
flutter of pain and fear. Or was it an omen signify-
ing the death of peace and love? Looking closely
at the pathway, she saw that the ants had come out
to investigate this garden death, and that the dead
bird's mates trod indifferently about him on in-
turned coralline toes. But Dil-Khusha went
quickly in from her paradise.

In the upper room Madri and Kunti, unemo-
tional, sat with feet tucked beneath them. Bhima,
white as the doves, patronized an enormous cushion.
He was relaxed, languid, serene. All three were
hypocrites. The two girls had spied upon their
betters and the cat was a murderer.

Dil-Khusha abandoned the muslin veil.

"I will bathe now," she said. Then she saw
Bhima.

"My Amir of cats ! He has not eaten this morn-
ing; he must have a roasted woodcock, Kunti."

Bhima had not eaten. Pigeon blood was pleas-
ant, but a raw pigeon he despised. He felt peace-
ful after his exercise.

Madri and Kunti, with meek, downcast eyes, went
out before the Princess, to prepare the bath.

The bath-place was a great, square room. Fif-
teen feet from the floor the walls were inset with
open alabaster screens and strained through these

28 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

filtered a colorless light that filled the place with a
refreshing coolness. Lengths of tapestry cloth from
Kashmir, worked with coarse silk the color of yel-
low chrysanthemums, hid the naked walls, and long
carpets, their intricate coloring somber as dark jew-
els, covered the floor.

As Dil-Khusha came to the tank-edge the women
lying on the raised floor, laid with thick-tufted rugs,
spoke to her, but she was very silent. Standing
on the cold brink, inlaid with chequered lapis laz-
zuli and red marble, she undressed and went down
between the fans of growing palms as into a forest
lake. The water was well above her waist and
Kunti poured it upon her shoulders from a bowl.
Then she broke her fast with fruit and warm
cream, strips of bread and sweet cakes. The chief
women of the Zenana were there. Draupadi, the
childless daughter of a Rajput king. She had moth-
ered Dil-Khusha and taken great pride in her. Sita,
lithe, supple, with large soul-drawing eyes. She
had been bred to charm snakes. Suvona, the acro-
bat and dancer, who had come from the north, was
like a stray Persian kitten. She had long, light
hair, a face like a pearl and a soft, sensual mouth,
pink as a white cat's muzzle. Suvona was the choice
of Akbar, the pale, prideful Lord of the Zenana.

Draupadi, handsome and fleshy, patted Dil-Khu-
sha's wet hair.

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 29

"Thou hast no voice, Heart's Delight. What is
it?"

"Nothing. It was hot last night; I am tired,"
she answered listlessly.

"Thou hast the look of a just-married bride."

Suvona yawned, beautifully. There was some-
thing insolent and animal-like about her splendid
teeth that were not small. She hated this praise
and petting of Dil-Khusha — Dil-Khusha who looked
at her as though she were a blank wall. If
anyone received praise it should be herself. She
was incomparable, sought out by the Great One.
But Suvona had cunning and shrewd foresight.
She kept her mouth shut before the favorite child
of Akbar.

"Sita, tell us more of the prophet," commanded
Suvona, abandoning herself to several fat, amber
cushions.

"What prophet, Sita?" Dil-Khusha was not curi-
ous, but silence bred questions and suspicion.

"Oh, they call him that, but he is only a boy,
this Kama Deva."

"Kama Deva?"

"The last of the Vickrams," said Draupadi.

There was no word for a moment or two and the
bespangled girls and women leaned closer together.
The ending of the house of Vickram in blood and
burning, as his carved stone city was left an open

30 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

sepulcher by the victors, carried a suggestion of
horror even after seventeen years.

"He says he is the son of Vickram," said Sita,
who seemed to know everything about it.

"Young?"

"Yes, a boy with no promise of a beard, but beau-
tiful; straighter than a palm and superbly tall."

This talk of handsome young humanity had all
the virgin girls listening thirstily. Madri and Kunti
listened with them.

"What a boy to play with a woman's heart,"
purred Suvona.

"I had it from Gohar, the second wife of Asaf,"
said Sita. "She saw him through the parting of a
curtain and says he was as desirable as a precious
jewel. Asaf laid hands on him a week ago. She
says the boy rages against the Great One like a
mad fakir."

"And prophesies?"

"They say so."

"Where is he now?"

"Here, in the prisons, Gohar said."

"It is like a tragic play," said Suvona yawning
with closed eyes.

"I wish I had been at that curtain," said Madri,
very low, picking at Kunti's ear-flower.

Sita sat among them like a small sphinx. The
moonstone lying between her brows seemed to era-

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 31

die the wise night in a lucid drop of bluish water.
She loved to cause a little vortex of gossip in the
scented stagnation of the Zenana, where even the
discovery of a decomposed pet monkey would be
talked of for days. And there was more to come.
Sita began again :

"Gohar says there is a woman in the story of
this boy."

"A woman !" twittered the girls.

"Safa — that was what Gohar said. Have any
of ye heard the name?"

"I have heard it," said Draupadi.

Sita went on quickly lest another should take up
the telling.

"For five seasons or less, or more — I do not
know — she has watched this Kama Deva from far
off, following his tracks like a leopardess trailing
a young stag. His tribesmen know it, his partisans
know it, but he — the boy — knows it not."

A twelve-year-old girl, whose hair, coiled at the
back, was smooth and sedate as a matron's, inter-
rupted.

"How can a woman live so, wandering openly
like a stray dog? Is she a bad one, a bazaar-
walker?"

"Thou fool! This is no man-governed bearer of
babes and boiler of rice. All women are not cast
in one fashion like silver anklets — some tarnished,

32 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

some clean. Thou dost not know what she may
be. I do not know. Gohar, the second wife of
Asaf, knoweth no more than I, but those who spoke
of her were very much afraid."

"Why doth she watch him, Sita?"

"That his horse may not throw a shoe and fall
with him; that the shivering fever may not come
to him when it rains. Once half a hundred Af-
ghan butchers on Arabian horses and with sickle
swords at their flanks gave him free road because
of her. So Gohar says."

Even Dil-Khusha was listening now. A tame
slate-plumaged dove pecked unnoticed at a saucer
of conserved pomegranate seeds, swallowing them
all greedily. Only Suvona lay feigning the indif-
ference of sleep. Delicious terror possessed the
listeners. A vapor of mystery curled about them
wherein the chain bridles of Arabian horses rat-
tled and a woman, many-armed like a goddess, kept
watch over a beautiful young man with joined eye-
brows.

"Do they say whether she is old?" inquired Ma-
dri.

"She is not old."

"Oh, Mahadeo ! Where are we if the Great One
seeth her with the corner of his eye ?"

This from the girl of twelve, the daughter of a
minor king, whom Akbar had taken to wife a month

before for reasons of policy. He had only seen
her once.

Draupadi laughed.

"Dost thou fear for thy credit with him? We
will offer milk and rice that the Dead Ones may
avert such a happening."

Suvona opened her eyes. She was lying full
length, nude to the waist, and sunk sensuously
among yellow cushions.

"Bah! What is all this chatter of a jungle-roam-
ing witch? A husbandless thing wrapped in saf-
fron— ye know the breed. If she were the very
salt of beauty and came daily to the palace gate
unveiled should I lose sleep because of it?"

She pulled at a long string of pearls wound three
times round her neck and the silk broke.

"I had these from the hand of the Great One
two nights ago. There are a full hundred here,
and each matches each more perfectly than a twin."

She threw the broken string from her and the
scattered pearls ran everywhere on the ice-smooth
floor.

"I will ask for another string to-night and the
pearls of it shall be larger than peas."

34 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

Madri dawdled beneath the awning of a sweet-
meat vendor's shop.

The shop floor was very high and the seller of
sweetmeats squatted thereon behind lines of delect-
able defences. It was early afternoon and hot. The
shop shadow had width; the seller of sweetmeats
was a widower and Madri had the greediness of a
bee for sugar.

She leaned her elbows on the level of the window
and took a finger of pink jelly dusted with sugar
powder.

"Who will pay for that?" inquired the seller of
sweetmeats.

"Thou niggard! I am privileged."

"So ? When wilt thou" marry me ?"

Madri took a crystallized Persian peach.

"To how many children art thou a father?"

"To none. I wedded a barren woman."

"Thy father and mother were liars. Thou hast
five. There shall have been no bearing in the house
I enter."

The sweetmeat seller gazed admiringly at the
tight, vivid bodice of the girl, computing the num-
ber of boys that should be born to such a one —

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 35

his own were daughters — and Madri picked a ball
of almond paste from the hollow of a great leaf.

Directly opposite were the imposing marble pil-
lars, each column tall as a tree and foliaged with
heavy carving. They sentineled the Durbar court.
In the great widths of pavement only an elephant
could move with dignity.

Two men together and another, coming singly,
met before the open front of the sweetmeat shop
where stood the palace girl in red. The man who
had come alone was draped in long garments of a
dingy whiteness. He had a white beard and sharp,
sour eyes, while the mustiness of stored manuscripts
clung to him like a perfume. The other two, Khu-
zru Khan, the son of an Amir, and old Girbur, who
had grown frosty whiskered in the faithful service
of Akbar, gave him greeting :

"Peace be with thee, oh Mulraz."

Mulraz almost snarled.

"Seeing that I traffic with neither wine nor
women, how should I be otherwise than at peace?
Can ye say likewise?"

Young Khuzru Khan, who had spent the night
with a nautch dancer, became uneasy.

"Come, Mulraz," he said, feeling a moustache
that was still delicate as silk, "what does this day
portend ?"

"No good to Akbar."

36 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

Girbur stiffened like an old dog.

"What sayest thou?"

Mulraz put forth a hand, old, unwashed and
nervous, with a monstrous diamond on the middle
finger.

"The heavens have spoken unto the earth; again
I say it — no good to Akbar."

"No good; what meanest thou?"

"Listen! This day as I arose I saw" — Madri be-
hind him, with eyes round as the balls of almond
paste, was listening, too — "the sun rise."

"Oh mother Durga! Chunda, didst thou hear
that? He saw the sun rise!"

Listeners in the shadow of the sweetstuff ven-
dor's shop gave way to impertinent laughter.
Abruptly Mulraz went on, the light of the diamond
shaking on his tense, quivering hand.

"This morning did ye set your faces to the east
in prayer, as is commanded, ye true believers? I
rose to pray and I tell ye that from a fair birth sky
the sun came bloody and there was a glare as of
great fire."

"An omen?"

Mulraz grunted and his quivering hand went out
again.

"When Akbar's guardian sun leaps thus af-
frighted from a healthful, cloudless night should it
portend any good?"

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 37

Old Girbur pulled at his beard a moment or two,
then he said very slowly : "A man whom I did not
see came in at dawn. He had a message for the
Peerless One that a certain woman, Safa, begged
an audience."

The girl in the shadow caught the name as a
quick child catches a ball.

"Chunda, thou fool, be silent! They are speak-
ing great matters. We will listen."

" 'Tis well suggested," said Mulraz acidly.
"Who save a woman could set the skies aflame?"

"Knowest thou of what repute this woman is,
my father?" inquired young Khuzru Khan. Wom-
en and well-bred horses were his two loves.

"My knowledge of her is sufficient, and daily I
praise God — who alone is great — that he hath be-
stowed on me the wisdom to rightly estimate all
such. She is reputed mysterious and comely; twin
traps of the devil. They draw fools as the stench
of garbage brings jackals."

"Is she Parsee, Islamite, or Hindu; what doth
she worship?"

"The Brahmin's Fire God, Agni. This coming
was written on the dawn sky."

"I have heard some talk to-day. Thinkest thou
she works miracles, Mulraz?" said Girbur.

"Women were created to prepare food, to chatter
and to bear children. When a woman neglects

38 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

these things and causes rumors and fears among
men she hath worked a miracle."

"And what is it that brings her here ?" questioned
the Amir's son. No answer was forthcoming to
this.

Young Khuzru Khan had wheels of emeralds
hanging from his ears. These fascinated Madri
and abashed her. How could she speak before a
mightiness that bore large emerald ear-hoops? Yet
she was bursting with full information. And now
he had put a question they could not answer. She
gathered her courage, took three steps, raised her
joined hands to her forehead and bowed before
them.

"My lord hath questioned. If my lord will par-
don his female servant I think I guess the purpose
of her coming."

Mulraz looked sourly upon her.

"Women and cats appear where their company is
least desired," he said cuttingly.

"I am no cat. I have some knowledge, but now
I will not speak what I know," replied Madri auda-
ciously.

"Oh yes thou wilt; thou art aching with desire
to talk."

"Let the girl speak, Mulraz," said Khuzru Khan.
"What dost thou know ?"

"Listen, my lord. Here in the prisons there is a

SAP A COMES TO DELHI 39

man, Kama Deva, who doth claim to be last of the
Vickrams — so they say. He is young, but a great
prophet and most handsome, they did tell me in
the harem."

"Ump ! They are wondrous critics in the harem,"
commented Mulraz, muttering in his unsavory
beard.

"And it hath been whispered that this woman,
Safa, watches him very closely. They say that
when the Afghans let him pass it was her work,
and yet he hath no knowledge of her watching. All
this is the gossip of the harem."

"Truly a fine place for gossip is the harem!"

"And so it hath been suggested to my mind "

"By the harem?" inquired the acrid philosopher.

"That she secretly loves him, although "

Madri's feminine mind, small, shrewd and fertile,
was working quickly, and after all Sita had not
called this woman young. "Although she hath
years enough to have borne him as a mother !"

Suddenly, like the roar of elephants, the thunder
of metal gongs broke out, smiting their ears with
a clamor of sound. It was the summons to the Dur-
bar. Madri slid back into female insignificance and
the sugar-filled shadow of the palace sweetstuff
shop, while Girbur, the Amir's son, and Mulraz
also obeyed the call of the gongs.

40 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

VI

Was it not ever ours ....

When most the eager quest of joy was rife,

To hear the deeper music borne along

With incommunicable harmony;

To see above the flaring lamps of life

The boding shadow of infinity?

Anonymous.

In a mud-walled passage street five feet across,
where the offal of food was thrown and lay fester-
ing, where the ribs of a week-dead dog, pecked
partially bare by crows, protruded through a drift
of withered marigolds, a leper had his lair.

The nameless hand of decay lay heavily upon all
that was there and most heavily upon him, for the
disease had been his garment for three years. He
crouched weakly among the piled uncleanness with
not even a strip of cloth to cover his dreadful
nakedness. A child had thrown out some cooked
rice and with this he fed himself ravenously. His
face was featureless save for the eyes, and these
were tranquil, for the soul of the man had found
peace. His spirit was naked as his unclean body,
and without undue impatience he waited the con-
summation of his sickness and the absorption of
himself within that Higher Will that had imposed

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 41

it upon him. Once he had worn clean, perfumed
linen and had gone abroad in a roofed and painted
ox-cart lined with satin pillows, but the memory
was no more to him than the withered marigolds
that choked the passageway.

Very far from there the boom of gongs sounded
for a while like the droning of a bee in a flower.
The leper's dulled sense caught nothing, but a dis-
reputable parish dog, grubbing in the refuse, lifted
an ear inquiringly.

The hall of the Durbar was like a vast cavern
of snowy-white marble ; but this fair aspect of cold-
ness was overladen, from the bases of the walls to
the arch-divided roof, with little rosy flecks of
bloom and fresh leaves — an exquisite inlay of pink
alabaster and leaf-green jade. At the rear of the
hall was a gold-beaked peacock, larger than life. It
formed the back of the golden chair. The feathers
of his spread tail were of gold and the color of the
feathers, was the color of dark sapphires. The eyes
of them were enormous oval emeralds. The rare
skins of snow leopards carpeted the steps before
the Peacock Throne. With infinite labor and peril
had those rich hides been won in remote moun-
tain ranges of awful and unbroken solitude. Sin-
gle, creamy, sensuous-smelling blooms, whose birth-
soil was Ceylon, had been thrown here and there
upon the skins.

42 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

There were many men ranked about the Peacock
Throne waiting the coming of its occupant. Kings
of Rajputana and the Bengal provinces, Mo-
ghul Amirs, Mohammedan and Hindu captains
of countless men and elephants were assembled
there.

The thud and blare of music-drums and pipes
broke out close upon them. Abul Fazl, the Grand
Vizier, and others who held high places had en-
tered. Now came soldiers, servants, the bearers of
the white horsehair fly-flappers and a Tamil with a
large tiger cub following on a chain. Now the
hand-beaten tom-toms sounded like dry thunder in
the hills and the cymbals clashed as though crying
aloud. Scented water was sprinkled upon the floor.
Suddenly, with one movement, all the people fell
upon their faces. Only the man-made peacock held
erect its diamond-crested head. Akbar had entered.
There was a short silence in which the tiger cub
snuffed loudly at the leopard's hide that was spread
beneath him. Then a deep male voice spoke sonor-
ously :

"The Lord hath given me an Empire and a wise
heart and a strong arm. He has guided me in
righteousness and justice and has removed from
my thoughts everything but justice. His power
surpasses man's understanding. Great is his
power."

SAP A COMES TO DELHI 43

From the pavement came a many-voiced muffled
response :

"Allahu Akbar."

Then the court arose simultaneously from the
kneeling posture.

Beneath the gemmed marvel above the throne
that was a symbol of the sun sat a man of forty.
In breadth, in bone, in short, square beard and in
the manner of his bearing he was lion-like. A
strong man in brain and body; a man of royal
pride; cruel and noble as a splendid beast. His
grape-purple brocade mantle was stiff with gold
and he wore many rings, but no jewel in ear or
nostril. On one side the half-grown tiger cowered,
on the other Abul Fazl, the Vizier, stood discreet.
Upon cushions on the steps before the judgment
seat sat Dil-Khusha, shrouded in silk. To have her
there, veiled, was her father's whim, as was the
presence of the tiger cub. She sat very still, feel-
ing the eyes of the man she loved upon her and
yearning for him. It seemed a long, long while
since he had gone from her in the summer-house.
That had been quite early in the morning and now
it was young afternoon. When would she feel his
lips on hers again?

Akbar was speaking:

"I have received report of a strange fanatic in
the prisons. What is his conduct, Jemadar?"

44. THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

A captain salaamed with joined hands.

"Most merciful, the boy is mad. He hath been
seven days imprisoned and hath not begged for
mercy."

"What does he ask?"

"He asks for justice, Peerless One."

"Bring in the boy. He who seeks for justice in
this court shall never be afflicted with delay. He
shall be heard."

A praiseful murmur rose. The court purred in
its beard — all save Mulraz and Adhiraj. Mulraz
never purred, and the young man was preoccupied.
There was an interval and then a turn of heads,
for the prisoner was coming between guards. He
was a slender, well-grown boy and very handsome;
of the purest Rajput type, straight featured
as a Greek. But he bore himself as grimly
as a conquered king, tight-lipped, and his
gloomy eyes, beautiful and large as those of
a high-bred, high-strung horse, were feverish.
They halted him at the steps of the judgment
seat.

"Fanaticism chooses those of the best promise,
like the vile fruit maggot," muttered the Lord of
Life and Death in his crisp beard and Abul Fazl,
the Vizier, gave bland assent.

"Thou railest against me. Who hath misled
thee thus?" said the Great One aloud and abruptly.

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 45

He approved of the fine fearlessness of the hand-
some boy.

"I am thy enemy."

It was a direct defiance spoken in a raised voice.

Akbar smiled.

"Strange speech from such a cub as thou. I
have done thee no wrong. Canst thou deny it?"

"Even as the lamb denies the vulture the right
to gloat within its dying sight!"

"What dost thou mean ?"

The boy's voice rose again, quivering.

"My father was thy foe. Thou wast his con-
queror and, not content with the rich spoil of all
he had — not glutted with a hundred bullock carts
of stuffs and coined silver and hammered gold —
like a mad elephant thou didst trample him and all
his kin to death and turned his city to a shambles!"

Akbar laid his hands upon the arm-heads of his
soft-cushioned, golden chair. His question was curt
as a blow.

"Who art thou?"

The boy straightened as he stood — young, slight
and dark-clad — between armored guards. He spoke
slowly and his voice rang with a superb pride.

"Kama Deva, son of Vickram, King of the
World. The blood of kings of endless generation
cries in these veins. Even thou — thou dost usurp
the place that should be mine !"

46 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

There was a stillness in the white Durbar Hall.
Dil-Khusha in a vivid flash, recollecting the Zenana
chatter, strained to see through the blinding film
of silk that was drawn before her face. She could
hear the tiger cub still snuffing at the leopard's pelt.

The man in the judgment seat was growing dan-
gerous, but he spoke fairly.

"Go not too far ; I owe thee naught. That which
I took was won in open battle. Thy father's fight-
ing men were given into my hand by the judgment
of God — who alone is great! The whirlwind hath
no reckoning of each speck of dust and Akbar's
empire, lasting through all time, can take no count
of the single victims in its course."

From the captains and the princes and the lesser
kings there was a servile murmur of applause.
Kama Deva flung out an arresting arm. He was
quivering; his brows drawn together, his eyes wide
and unnatural.

"Beware in thy pride, oh king! I — I who stand
before thee have looked upon the stars and it is
written in silver, on the wise brows of the night,
that peace dies with Akbar."

The quivering had gone. He seemed to stiffen,
his outflung arm was rigid as steel. His eyes were
fixed upon an infinite distance.

"Kings shall war with their sons and brother
against brother. They have taken the ploughing

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 47

bullocks from the plough to bear the spoils of their
wars. The armies have trodden down the village
fields and the water channels are tainted with blood.
The air is dark with the flight of vultures to the
fresh battle-ground; the milch goats are scattered;
a wounded warhorse screams at the sky. Blood
shall run in Delhi for a hundred years and again a
hundred years. They have taken the knife from
the sheath and it shall be hungry until a stronger
hand cometh upon the hilt. The West shall come
to the East, the unborn children shall hear the sound
of many footsteps and then, and not till then, shall
the shadow of peace lie long upon the land. . . .
Such is thy fate."

The strained voice broke like the snapping of a
cord. The inner sight passed, as it had come, in
bodily quivering. Kama Deva folded his arms and
looked steadily at the ground, tight-lipped.

"Very prettily prophesied," commented Mulraz.
"If I chose to spend my nights in scramblings upon
the housetops like a torn cat I also could shout warn-
ings in the ears of the deaf — and beg my food in
the bazaar I"

No one appeared to hear him. Akbar's grip of
the golden elephant heads beneath his hands was
cruel. Abul Fazl, the Vizier, bent to him and spoke
glibly. He resembled a tilted bottle sleekly yield-
ing perfumed oil.

48 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

"Peerless One, the nectar of thy virtues will in-
toxicate a million poets when thy grandson's sons
are men. The people look upon thy goodness and
graciousness as upon a god incarnate, and the wis-
dom of thine ordinances shall cause their children's
children to bless thy name. God — who alone is
great! — hath afflicted this youth with madness, but
in the hearing of fools such prophesies are danger-
ous even as weapons in the hands of babes. He
must be silenced."

The shadow of the Future passed. Again Akbar
sat in judgment in the power of his greatness and
a stripling boy stood before him to be judged.

"Yea — he must be silenced. I would be merci-
ful, but this subtle poison may infect wholesome
minds. Take the boy away and let him be slain
mercifully with the sword in the prisoner's court.
Look to it, Jemadar."

The captain salaamed and Kama Deva, son of
Vickram, was led out to die. As he went the half-
grown tiger lowered its head and roared — the judg-
ment-voice of the tribunals of the eternal forest
from whence man comes in the beginning.

Other suppliants came and went and their causes,
fluctuated at the steps of the Peacock Throne like
the petty wash of tides. Akbar, looking out occa-
sionally through the spaced, polished pillars of thick
marble veined like a girl's white hand, saw the

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 49

shimmering passage of tapestry-clad elephants, their
pierced earflaps ornamented with enormous gems.
He saw the gaily dressed, well-fed servant folk
squatting on their haunches awaiting the pleasure
of their masters. Peace and the magnificence of
peace were there. There was a monotonous com-
ing and going of those who fell upon their faces on
the stone before him in the familiar attitude and
a drone of titles that were as the titles of a god.
The unweighed speech of a fanatic was like the
cry of a sick child who dreams. The everlasting
marble that Akbar had planted would uphold this
roof above the head of justice through the long
vistas of well-ordered years. . . . And yet those
lost cities that the forest had taken to its secret
bosom, the very names of whose gods were for-
gotten, had not they too been deemed eternal in
the day of their power?

The crippled leper, amid the putrid refuse of the
passage-street, dwelt in spirit upon the awe, beauty
and wonder of the Supreme Soul. He knew the
unknowableness of it, but at times his understand-
ing fluttered at the crystal threshold of some revela-
tion. Stupendous emptinesses of amber light, soft
as floss silk, seemed all about him; ultimate glory
crystallized to the semblance of infinite; shining
floors translucent as a golden topaz appeared to his
fascinated gaze. All that existed — the things with-

50 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

in and the things without the petty knowledge of
men — appeared poised before the power and discern-
ment of the Supreme Soul like a reflection-filled
globe of glass in the hollow of his hand. To the
supreme essence the star, the sand grain and the
mind of a man were equal. An ecstatic happiness
flooded the leper's consciousness. A feeling of rare-
fied spiritual joy, keen as light that comes to one
who abides among summits of blue ice, invaded his
being. His soul was as the soul of an ascetic of the
Himalaya, who has the odorous pine forests for
his footstool and becomes wholly desireless and
serene.

And the passage-street stank and festered; a di-
seased dog rooted in the buffalo dung and the dead
marigolds, disturbing the week-old carcass. In the
house enclosures the women wrangled and the chil-
dren laughed in childish glee. Afterwards they
cried themselves to sleep, huddled uncomfortably to-
gether on a pitiful heap of rags.

In the Hall of the Durbar, old Girbur coming
quickly from without, prostrated himself before the
Peacock Throne as he delivered his message :

"Peerless One, the woman, Safa, who is come on
a secret errand, awaits thy will."

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 51

VII

One could not get by heart that sweetness, not
From noon-foam of the Mediterranean,

Nor long and leafy Lebanonian sigh
To lone Abanah under Syrian stars.
"Herod" Stephen Phillips.

The Lord of Life and Death moved easily upon
his golden seat.

"Safa, thou sayest? A name that begetteth mys-
tery. Was it not said that she hath some interest
in this condemned boy — this Kama Deva?" He
glanced at Abul Fazl as at an open book of refer-
ence. "Go one of you after the Captain, Jemadar,

and if the boy be yet alive tell him I would stay
the sentence until a later hour."

A servant slipped from the Hall, running.

"Thou hast seen this woman, Girbur?"

The old man nodded a tremulous assent and
bowed his white-turbaned head low before the king.

"Even as one sees in groves, glades, rivers, moun-
tains and valleys the Glory of God," he said, bring-
ing the words out painfully.

"She is beautiful?"

"Peerless One, she was veiled, but are we not
aware of the moon when at the full of its bright-

52 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

ness even though the night be clouded? Like the
star which sometimes shineth near the full moon's
rays was the corner of her eye as she spoke with
me."

"What said she?"

"That she was beautiful."

"Her own voice told thee that?"

"Peerless One, her words, as is the manner of
women, told nothing; but her speech was gentle,
slow and sweet as the flowing of thick honey. The
Creator doth not bestow such a voice upon the un-
comely."

Akbar smiled.

"By Allah! Thou didst well to bear thine en-
thusiasm so swiftly hence that it hath had no time
to stale. My guest should be a most welcome pas-
time from what thou sayest. Let her enter."

There was a movement of interest among the
ranked princes and captains. Women who were not
of the lower folk had no dealings in the public ways
or in the audience halls of kings. Sometimes the
walls of their world were cloaked on the inner side
with garden jasmine; sometimes they were the
closed doors of a litter; sometimes the drawn cur-
tains of a bullock cart, but there were always walls.
There was a spice of the unusual in this matter
and a woman alone ever carries the primal interest
of sex in a gathering of men.

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 53

She was coming now, slowly, with Girbur in
advance. Colorless silk was wrapped carefully about
her. They could see only that she was tall and
moved with the carriage of a beautiful woman.
She came before the lowest step of the Peacock
Throne and bent her head, then raised it proudly,
and stood awaiting the great king's pleasure.

Akbar looked curiously upon her. As she was
silent he spoke first graciously.

"Welcome . . . when Akbar giveth welcome
there is no measured meaning in the word."

"I thank thee."

The voice was beautiful as Girbur had said — slow
and sweet as the flowing of thick honey.

"Thou dost not kneel. Homage denied is hom-
age to be won. Is it also customary with thee to
conceal thy face?"

"There is no law for this concealment, yet I pre-
fer it."

"To clothe thy .plainness ?"

The Lord of Life and Death spoke softly and
with cunning, for all his knowledge of women,
gained in twenty-five sense-sated years, was behind
the insolent question.

There was no verbal answer, but, with a gesture
of superb indignation, the woman threw back the
silver-hemmed veil and faced him imperiously.

She was taller than was usual among Hindu

54 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

women, and the fullness of the bosom and the fine
curve of the hip were glorious. But the face, beau-
tiful, with an almost Grecian flawlessness of feature,
was a mask for sorrow, and from the darkness of
eyes, that were star-like with unshed tears, there
looked out a stricken and agonized soul. The
mouth, too, luscious as a small ripe fruit, was un-
utterably sad. The white, classic drapery, silver-
edged, clung to her shapely form. She had orna-
ments of diamonds and rubies in her ears and a sin-
gle ruby lay like a drop of blood between her brows.
They were rich jewels; the jewels of kings and of
queens.

The eyes of every man in the Durbar Hall were
upon her. The Tamil who held the tiger was star-
ing as though at an incarnation of the goddess
Lakshmi who rose from the sea of milk upon a
lotus lily. Akbar stared also, unsparingly, and Safa
looked away before the speech of his eyes. He
noted the long line of the hip, the promise of gen-
erosity in the breast, the ripe mouth, the firm curve
of the cheek and the suddenly-wakened animal ad-
miration was hot within him. But there was more
here than mere beauty of the body — something
strong and subtle as a strange and poignant per-
fume. This woman would not be bent on the in-
stant to a man's desire. Conscious of all these
things, he spoke.

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 55

"Thou art beautiful ... I never saw one half
so beautiful . . . what is thy wish?"

Again her eyes, like indignant stars, were upon
him.

"Thou hast a prisoner — Kama Deva, son of Vick-
ram."

As she spoke Mulraz, little Dil-Khusha and the
Lord of Life and Death each had the same thought :
"This is just as I expected. What does it mean?"
Akbar gripped the sheathed sword hilt and blade
that lay across his knees.

"I know of such a youth. By venomous prophe-
sies he hath sought to mock my greatness, and for
this rank offence I have even now condemned him
to death."

"To death ... to death! Oh it cannot be so!
No, no — thou hast not — thou wouldst not "

She was in terror now, looking to him in an
agony of appeal. Akbar was judicial.

"What interest hast thou in this boy?"

"He is my countryman ; his people are my people,
and they love him."

"But how earnest thou to be their ambassador?"

"Oh King, I came as a peaceful suppliant to beg
thy mercy. It was said that a thousand armed men
thundering at thy gates would move thee less than
the pleading of a woman."

"By Allah! they were right who so reckoned!"

56 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

broke out the Lord of Life and Death. Certainly
her beauty was an intoxication. He was inclined to
harbor fierce resentment against this hairless-faced
boy who could command such an advocate. Safa
went on:

"It is said of thee that thou art most wise and
just, but, if this be so, how couldst thou slay the
innocent? He is almost a child still . . . how he
hath offended thee I do not know, but it is now four
days since word was brought to the villages that
love him and the people of those villages were very
angry; they talked of war and of a rising against
thee, and some brought out the weapons that were
hidden in the thatch of the roofs and in the byres
of the cattle. Great One, their fathers were the
children of Vickram in the time when those lands
were his, and they reverence the son of Vickram,
remembering that time. They are very simple
people; the old men show him the scars of their
service to his father and the women prepare their
best for him. They lift the children up to see him
as he passes. There is no wrong in these things.
How shall they harm thee in thy greatness? . . .
When I had heard the word of this talk of war
that was brought I spoke to them. I told them to
put back their weapons and go to their fields; that
Akbar's justice would return to them the son of
their king ; that I would go alone to Delhi and seek

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 57

there thy justice and thy mercy. They -listened to
the things I spoke to them and they believed and
put away their weapons. That was four days ago,
and on that day I left them. I came by the shorter
ways, by the jungle roads, and in the darkness the
creatures of the jungle were behind us and before
us. There were a pair of eyes, like twin emeralds,
in the head of a devil and they stared — and stared.
There were howlings and laughter and whispers
and the crash of great bodies in the bamboos . . .
We seemed to be so slow — so slow! But we went
forward rapidly and it was my heart only that stood
still. Now it is the fourth morning and Delhi has
been reached at last! The gates are open! Am I
in time? Oh speak, Great King! Am I in time?"

She fell on her knees with bare, jeweled arms
outstretched to him as to a god. Hysteria, begot-
ten of fatigue and fear, had hold upon her and
there was the glow of some deeper agony behind it
like the red, liquid heart in the gloom of a car-
buncle.

As that last cry of her great pleading came to
him Akbar half rose. He was aware only of her
eyes and of the beautiful outstretched arms. Kindly
words, impulsive and generous, granting a sweep-
ing pardon and mercy to the boy, were already in
his mouth when there came a sharp, dry whisper
from Abul Fazl at his elbow :

58 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

"Peerless One, this woman loves this youth."

Abruptly Akbar sat back again and the words
of the free pardon died in his throat. The abso-
lute and unrestrained possession of as many women
as desire may ask, begets savage jealousy, unrea-
soned, grasping, roused at a touch. Inflamed at
the suggestion, he hated Kama Deva with a bitter
hate. "Was that, indeed, the truth?" he wondered.

"If thou wilt say that no other motive than love
. . . . " he began smoothly.

"Love!"

"Of thy countrymen and his hath brought thee
hither and thou art but thy people's voice that plead-
eth for him I will release him."

There was a moment of silence.

"Oh King, thou hast said it. That is the motive
of my coming."

The Lord of Life and Death raised his voice.

"Bring in the prisoner."

Safa, who had risen, seemed to set her body in
a mold of rigidity. Her face, scarcely darker, was
as bereft of all expression as an ivory mask. The
small, trembling diamonds and rubies that hung in
double loops from her ears to the hollows of her
neck made no glittering, she was so still. It was
the rigidity of grouped marble where a strong man
checks the tense strength of a leashed panther —
the utmost strain of fierce control struck into stone.

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 59

The woman's sex-sensitive feelings within her
shrank indignant and afraid, before the eyes of the
man upon the Peacock Throne.

They brought the boy in, guarded as before.
When the servant came with the message of delay,
Kama Deva had looked upon the bare sword and
the straw was ready on the ground to soak up his
blood. A little later and the message would have
come too late. He seemed tighter-lipped than ever
and barely noticed the unveiled woman in white.
Women were a matter of no interest to Kama Deva.
Safa never moved her eyes. They stood quietly
within five steps of each other.

Akbar studied them keenly for a moment. The
stillness of the woman proved nothing, but the in-
difference of the boy was. real enough. She was
strange to him. The unreasoning sex-hatred flick-
ered out; as upon wings an illuminating idea came
to him and he smiled a little in his beard.

"Exquisite incarnation of the divine nectar of
beauty, thou hast asked of me my forgiveness of
this young man. Most eloquently hast thou pleaded
the love of thy people for him and the innocence
of his youth; therefore will I be less than merciful
if I deny my mercy. Even from the womb wast
thou destined a subduer of kings ! Take that which
thou hast sought — thy countryman is free."

Safa's clutch upon the silk at her breast loosened

60 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

on the instant and her hand fell softly away. Kama
Deva suddenly looked up to the Peacock Throne,
dazed and stubborn.

"But this bare freedom is the right of all but
slaves. He shall be honored. He hath the seal of
prophesy upon him, therefore he shall be pro-
claimed a prophet. This day I will rejoice in the
right to give and it is written in the sacred law
that the word of a king shall be obeyed like a god's.
Wherefore must my giving beget obedience. It is
my will that this young man shall enjoy a jewel
above price, for the possession of a pure woman is
more than the possession of rare pearls. In this
giving I bestow that which is most dear unto my-
self. Kama Deva, son of Vickram, behold thy wife
— the peerless, glorious, superbly beautiful Dil-
Khusha."

Utter astonishment smote the Durbar Hall.
Kama Deva, frowning as blackly as a thunder-
storm, stared up at the Lord of Life and Death.
Adhiraj took a quick forward step, clutching at the
long, heavy dagger that never left him night or
day. But the small, slight, frail figure that had sat
all the while cross-legged and swathed in ample silk
muslin on the big cushion two steps below the judg-
ment seat, rose very suddenly.

The ending of Akbar's most astounding gift-
speech had come to Dil-Khusha like a blow from

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 61

the bare hand of a giant. She was being given
now to a young man called Kama Deva, who spoke
big words bitterly with an arrogant boy's voice.
The kisses of the man she loved were still fresh on
her lips. In a moment the brave Rajput blood in
her was aflame and, like a wounded creature, she
sprang up, drawn to the fullness of her little height.
Her veil slipped from her face, falling backward
from her smooth, ebony-black hair that was coiled
up and clustered with bunches of jewels. She stood
revealed, unveiled and bare-headed, before the full
Durbar. Her father, seated two steps above her,
appeared like a splendid and inexorable god. She
had never seen him so before; nor the soldiers and
princes, nor the inlaid walls save through a blur of
silk.

"Peerless One — my father — I am no longer a
child! Thou dost think of me as of a child — but
I am not. Indeed, I am a woman now. Thou wilt
not bestow me, like a horse or a dog, where I have
no will to go — thou wilt not do this? Oh thou
canst not know what death it is to me — this thing
that thou wouldst do! My father, thou wilt not?"

She was terrified at the exposure of herself, at
what she had said, at the aspect of her father, at
the silence and the vast numbers of listening men.
It had the peculiar bleak and naked horror of real-
ity but with all the enormity of a dream.

62 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

Akbar had not spent the shadow of a thought
upon Dil-Khusha's probable individual will in the
affair. The bestowal of a daughter from his Zenana
or of a horse or an elephant from his stables were
equal matters in his sight. He was very angry.

"Be silent. Thou art a child and an exceedingly
foolish one; that alone excuses thee. Thou hast
heard. When thy father speaks it should be to thee
like the voice of God and disobedience is a blas-
phemy. Veil thyself. Anger me no more."

But Dil-Khusha fell face downward on the steps
before him, reaching toward his feet with small,
pitiful hands.

"Oh my father! Be merciful to me — be merci-
ful!"

Lying there she was as fragile and fragrant and
piteous as the blossom of almonds beaten down by
hail. The Lord of Life and Death half rose. It
seemed that he might kick the girl as a man might
kick a disobedient dog; but strange things were
happening in the Durbar Hall. Safa, coming
swiftly up the steps, stooped, lifted Dil-Khusha,
who sobbed and gasped as though under a knife-
stab, and pressed the girl's face against her breast.

"Child, I know thy wound is very deep. Be
comforted. Take hope. I promise thee by my own
soul that thou shalt not hope in vain."

Holding the girl close to her, Safa looked with

SAFA COMES TO DELHI 63

splendid defiance upon the father of the girl. Akbar
had risen. The nearness of the woman brought the
actual physical beauty of her almost within the
reach of his hand. Savage anger and fierce ad-
miration flamed together.

"Dost thou defy me, too? As God liveth! who
else would thwart my will?"

Adhiraj was already in the center of the Durbar,
a vivid, virile figure of challenge.

"I would."

"Thou!"

"Peerless One, I, Adhiraj, son of Umra Singh,
son of Ram Rai, ask of thee thy daughter Dil-Khu-
sha that I may make her my wife."

The lion had come to the limit of his patience;
it was the last goad. He pointed straight at the
young man.

"Seize him!" he said sternly. And they heard
the order in the court-area without.

"For this affronting of my will I forbid thee
Delhi, for the space of one year. Disobedience will
be visited with death, so look to it that thou be
not found within the walls until thy punishment is
accomplished. Take him to the city gate."

Little Dil-Khusha had lifted her face from Safa's
breast, staring at Adhiraj with great, tragic, child-
ish eyes, while he looked up to her from below. As
the armed men closed round him she fell suddenly,

64 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

almost across Akbar's feet. It seemed again that
he would spurn the pretty anguished child, but Safa
flung out a protesting hand to stay him. Instantly
the Lord of Life and Death had his strong grip
upon her fingers. The whole nature of the man
was in that powerful hand that gripped her own,
with virile clasp. And his hand was hot. For a
long instant she endured his hold upon her, feeling
the message of it vibrate from his pulses to hers,
meeting steadily the speech of his eyes. Then she
drew away from him and veiled herself closely and
carefully and went down the steps, past the boy,
Kama Deva, down the length of the hall of audi-
ence and out between the monstrous marble pillars.
When Dil-Khusha had been carried within the
Zenana to the ministrations and motherly bosom of
Draupadi, the servants assigned to him brought
Kama Deva to the lodging destined for his use.
After Abul Fazl had poured much oil upon the
troubled waters of the interrupted Durbar, Akbar
sent abroad servants on whom he could rely. But
they returned having accomplished nothing, for the
black palanquin and the imperious Safa had gone
out from Delhi.

PART II
KAMA DEVA

THE noiseless Hindu servant, deft and dis-
creet, finally disappeared and Kama Deva
was left alone. He stared with indigna-
tion and bitter contempt at the ceremonial dress and
the headgear, plumed with a stiff silver tuft, that
were laid out on the mattress-like divan. The serv-
ant had proposed to habit him in these gift-gar-
ments, but he had sternly told the man to go. Could
he wear such gorgeous furnishings ? They were the
trappings of the Usurper's panderers, and stank of
slavishness and of flattery. Faugh! A shudder of
repulsion swept over him.

The power of the great palace was like the weight
of a mountain smothering the life of his soul. He
was in the house of his father's murderer. A band
of inlaid arabesque decoration, in red, white and
black marble, edged with flecks of gilt, was carried
around the four naked walls. Red, for the blood
that ran in the royal city of Vickram when the last

65

66 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

defenders put on the saffron garments of despair
and fought to the death ; white, for the death-clothes
of the Rajput women who lighted funeral pyres
and lay down in the flames; black for the smoke
of their burning. The gilding was for the precious
spoil that was dug by the invaders from beneath
the floors; torn from the ears of elephants; from
the wrists of dead women, and from the foreheads
of gods. In the last hour the people of his father
had performed the rite of Johur, finding glorious
death under the very snouts of the Mohammedan
swine, while he, the son of the Vickram, had life,
dishonored by the insulting favor of the Despoiler.
But he realized he must live to fulfil his destiny.
He had been born into the world for a purpose.
He was like a blade engraved with the lettering of
one word, "Revenge." And the blade must strike
and be driven home to the hilt. Only then might
it be snapped in pieces.

Outside the criss-crossing of the ornate sandal-
wood lattice a cobra, hatched in one of the palace
gardens, drank from a dish of milk set out by one
who held the Snake-God in reverence . . . and he,
Kama Deva, must take his food from the hand of
the Mohammedan — for a little while. Then a sud-
den knife plunged in the broad back or the broad
breast ; a supreme moment of attainment — and death
under a hundred spears! A dagger lay with the

KAMA DEVA 67

dress of ceremony on the mattress. Kama Deva
caught it up.

"Vickram — my father! By thy blood that lives
within me I swear that I will look neither to the
right nor to the left until this death be accom-
plished! Vishnu, hear my vow!"

He had taken nothing that day save a little water,
and his head ached intolerably. He paced back and
forth in the abrupt, baffled fashion of a lithe, im-
prisoned animal. The quiet of the guest-place
where he was ; the consciousness of the demure and
silent presence of servants within call; the apparel
laid out under his eyes and the limited space, clean,
cool and orderly, exasperated him increasingly. A
throbbing feverishness possessed him. His mind,
that was ordinarily lucid as glass, became delirious.
He clapped his hands suddenly, and in a moment
the servant was with him.

"I desire to ride. Get me a horse of spirit."

He spoke like a Maharajah of all India. The
man salaamed almost to the floor. From the horse
stables they led out a chestnut mare, who fidgeted
like an overwrought dancing-girl though two men
held her by the head. Kama Dava sprang straight
into the saddle without use of stirrup, throwing
himself forward upon her neck. The frantic mare
flung up her small, savage head, tossing the men
at her bridle right and left. With a sudden crazed

68 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

leap she was away like a streak of flame. The
grooms who had held her picked themselves up
murmuring.

"Surely it was the son of a king," said a sweeper
from the camel stables admiringly. "Are ye much
hurt, my brothers?"

"Naught broken, but somewhat bruised, and not
a little fouled, as thou seest," said the right-hand
groom. "Verily a young Rajah, despite his gar-
ments! He looked not once backward to discover
whether our heads were broken by the hoofs."

The chestnut mare was bolting frenziedly across
the waste land that lay from the outermost limit of
the palace enclosures to the river. Kama Deva,
lying low on her neck, with his face in her flying
mane, grew light-headed with the delirium of this
crazy speed. The ground was broken with sudden
hollows and death raced beside them with a hand
on the loose-swinging tasseled bridle. Presently
the boy straightened, found the shovel-shaped stir-
rups, and took command of the mare. A poor
man's milch buffalo blundered before them. With
the inbred instinct of the true rulers of men, he
thoughtfully headed the mare aside until the outer
shallows were torn into scattering splashes by the
hoof-cuts.

The light of the late afternoon slanted pleasantly.
The waste land was gone; the ploughed lands hur-

KAMA DEVA 69

ried by them on the left as they followed the mar-
gin of the river. A village was passed. Then a
second village whirled by. A fringe of jungle
swept down to the bed of the Jumma. A wave of
rank jungle grass rose girth-deep and Kama Deva
reined in the wheezing mare, now darkly striped
with sweat.

It was the time of sunset. There was a flutter-
ing stir of little bats and the sky in the west became
the color of a ruddy apple. From the right the
wide whisper of the great sand-bedded river came
to him ; on the left, beyond the dense thickets, were
the foot-deep wheel-tracks of a road. Kama Deva
slipped from the saddle. He had ridden off the
mind fever and now felt a wholesome hunger. The
mare, standing girth-high in a field of grass, looked
at him with large deer-like eyes. She was sub-
dued, inquiring. The loneliness was complete.
Such places were the likely haunt of thugs, the
professional thieves and stranglers of the highways.
Often a seemingly deserted girl weeping in the soli-
tude was the decoy. A crouching woman in white
drapery seemed to loom up there in the dimness
by the side of the road. But it was only a large,
colorless stone. Kama Deva put his hand on the
mare's neck. For the first time he saw that, at-
tached to the saddle, were a bow and a quiver of
arrows.

II

I am become a danger and a menace,
A wandering fire, a disappointed force.
... It is such souls as mine that go to swell
The childless, cavern cry of the barren sea,
Or make that human ending to night-wind.

"Paolo and Francesco" — Stephen Phillips.

The black palanquin was cushioned upon the in-
side with dark velvet. The sliding panels were
drawn a little open, and the frosty silver fringes of
the tiny looped-up curtains shivered continually be-
cause of the jerky speed of the bearers. Safa, lying
in the narrow darkness, looked out and saw the twi-
light jungle slipping past.

She was conscious of a terrible weariness of body
and of mind. When Delhi lay before her, un-
reached, agonizingly desired, every swaying mile
lessened the gap betwixt her and the beloved of
her heart. But now he was left behind in the city
of the Mohammedan. Her face was set from Delhi,
but her heart and the very core of her soul remained
in the palace of Akbar. That morning had brought
her to the threshold of fear and hope. It was
scarcely night yet. How much — how very much
had happened within an hour ! Appeal, smooth pre-
varication; pardon, bewilderingly brutal generosity;

KAMA DEVA 71

the fainting of a girl were indelibly imprinted on
her consciousness. Him she had not touched, not
even in passing; had not heard him speak except
formally; she had not even looked fully upon him
. . . but she had accomplished that for which she
had come. And now her soul, like a handful of
ashes, was bereft of all life and animation.

On either side the darkening jungle slid past like
the flowing of water. There was an ever-present
choking flurry of dust. The silver fringes shivered
and the light thud-thud of naked feet fell with mo-
notonous regularity.

A horrible, indescribable sound that was neither
a cough nor a moan, but partook of both, broke
out unexpectedly, coming from no particular direc-
tion, but seeming to eddy round them circle-wise.
It ceased as suddenly as it came. The swaying1
palanquin halted abruptly, almost with a jerk.
There was a twittering whisper like the soft cluck-
ings of frightened chickens; a man came close to
the paneling; it was the old body-servant, Sikandra
Khan. He spoke huskily:

"My mistress, it is a tiger . . . and these spawn
of jackals will not go forward."

Safa heard him without emotion.

"Open the panels," she said quietly. "I will de-
scend."

"But — the tiger, Gracious One?"

72 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

"I have said it, Sikandra. I will descend."

When she had alighted they put down the palan-
quin in the road. On the right the large voice of
a river purred softly from its bed of sand. The
road — two deep, parallel trenches cut by wheels —
came curving narrowly between jungle walls.

Suddenly an auburn-coated horse, bearing full
housings, broke out upon the track and fled up it,
mad with fear. The palanquin bearers, scattering,
cried out sharply; but they were uncertain which
way to go, for the message of the tiger, coming
from everywhere and yet from nowhere, held them
as in a panic.

In her journeying to Delhi Safa had been in con-
stant terror of the jungle. Her death would then
have meant the death of two. The cracking of a
stick ; the rattle of dead stalks and leaves ; the weep-
ing voices of little monkeys at dusk, had played
upon the tension of her fear as upon the single taut
string of an instrument. Now she was almost in-
different; feeling merely curious as to whether the
tiger would appear. The night was almost upon
them. Again came the horrible half moan, half
cough. Old Sikandra Khan was fumbling for the
weapon at his girdle. One of the bearers started
to run up the road, but checked himself and doubled
back to his fellows.

Something bounded suddenly into the man-path.

KAMA DEVA 7S

It was a tiger that measured all of ten splendid feet
from muzzle to tail-tip. It crouched on its belly
between the wheel-cuts, staring at them level-eyed,
its fringed chin in the dust. Safa heard behind
her the terrified yelp of men; then a noise of bare
feet running. Ahead there sounded a savage spat-
out snarl. The tiger, turned suddenly aside from
them, seemed struggling to draw itself across the
road. The dust rose like thin smoke.

"By the beard of my father, it hath received an
arrow in the flank! The devil is paralyzed in its
hinder part!"

Sikandra Khan, with a wide-bladed, antique tiger-
knife in his hand, started at a quick shuffle down
the track. The snarling tiger had dragged itself
behind a patch of jungle growth. Safa watched
Sikandra maneuvering about this patch for a mo-
ment or two. The snarling had ceased. She saw
him stoop as in a sudden salaam and a few seconds
later he was returning to her with the tiger-knife
re-sheathed.

She had not been at all afraid. The happening
had seemed as detached from her as might a bel-
lowing tussle of matched buffaloes viewed from an
alabaster window lattice twenty feet above. But
now she shivered with apprehension and dread. Si-
kandra, shuffling in curly-toed, hide shoes, appeared
fraught with some unuttered significance, messen-

74 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

ger-like, as the mysteriousness of the dusk rendered
him up to her again. She could neither still her
trembling nor understand it. The old body-servant
was almost overcome with excitement.

"Gracious One, the tiger is dead. He lieth by
the shriphala berry bush. I have spoken with his
slayer — a beardless boy, Gracious One. The first
arrow smote the beast with paralysis of its hinder
parts; the second it received in the gullet. Verily
by favor of the gods, a child hath turned death
aside from us!"

"Yea — it was indeed most bravely done. Go to
him quickly, Sikandra. Say that one who saw the
deed would speak with him."

She understood now. It could be none else. Her
flesh and blood had cried it with dumb voices, shak-
ing her from head to foot as her body had been
shaken and her soul all but riven from her by utter
pain in the time of that other first coming sixteen
years before. That coming had brought love and
sorrow; a guilty and timorous joy. These three
had stood beside her through all the seasons since;
the sorrow and the love were steadfast, but the joy
seemed always eluding her.

Sikandra Khan was coming again toward her
from the patch of shriphala-bushes with a tall, well-
set boy in dark blue raiment. Safa steadied her-
self with one hand against the palanquin. Kama

KAMA DEVA 75

Deva was elate and excited. It was his first tiger.
He was not at all unwilling to speak with the
woman he had rescued. He saw a beautifully
shaped white-enshrouded figure standing by a palan-
quin, her face bared to him. It was strange; was
she journeying alone? In the next instant he recog-
nized her.

"Peace be with thee, oh wondrous Light of
Heaven!"

The salaam was reverent. Pain and joy stabbed
her so sharply that Safa almost sobbed.

"Peace be with thee. . . . Thou art brave beyond
thine age."

The mystery of all that had been done, and also
of much that he had heard and partially forgotten,
pressed suddenly upon Kama Deva. This woman
had given him back his life. He looked at her rev-
erently but inquiringly.

"I believe now that it was Vishnu himself who
led hither that tiger, for to-day thou hast put me
so deeply in thy debt that I was much oppressed by
it. Tell me why thou didst plead for me, Most
Gracious One? Some things I have heard concern-
ing thee, but surely I was as strange to thee as thou
wast to me . . . ? Be that as it may, thou hast all
my gratitude. I have naught else — save a tiger's
Tilde."

"Thou hast heard of me before?"

76 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

"As one hears of miracles. Once fifty Afghans,
lying in ambush for those who rode with me, melted
like a mist; men and horses foolish with panic.
They say it was thy work. They say thou hast the
powers of a yogi . . . why hast thou befriended
me, a stranger, Light of Heaven ?"

"It is simply told. I came from the villages that
love thee and I spoke with their mouth. If there be
thanks due for so small a thing, for this only I
will take thy thanks."

"So be it. In myself I am nothing, but it is the
voice of Vickram that speaketh to thee through
my gratitude."

The boundless, unconscious pride of this humility
was splendid. Then the other aspect of the affair
rose abruptly and degradingly upon his remem-
brance.

"Though it were better had I died under
the sword than live to be made a jest of before
his assembled officials purring in their
combed beards! Would to God the Mohammedan
had offered me his torturer rather than his
daughter !"

The woman standing with him in the road looked
with pitiful and hungry eyes upon the pure, Grecian
features, the cleft chin, the narrow, jet-black, joined
brows, sensitive and arrogant. His straight-set
body was slim as a panther.

KAMA DEVA 77

"Hast thou no desire for this girl ? She is beau-
tiful."

"I would not touch her even with a finger, though
she were Lakshmi incarnate. The Great Ones have
wedded my life to a higher thing than love."

So no other woman had known those firm-cut
lips, or laid cool hands above those proud, chaste
brows. The pitifully hungry eyes dwelt lingeringly
upon him.

"Can aught be higher than Love?" she asked
searchingly.

"Yes. Honor. All that is Akbar's I have just
cause to hate."

Kama Deva was silent a moment. The sympathy
of this new listener tempted him. She was not as
other women. It was good to speak of the bitter
and sacred things that were the very life of him
to one who listened so sympathetically. And the sub-
tle influence of the interest of a mature woman
upon immature manhood beguiled him without his
consciousness of the beguilement.

"If thou wilt hear it, Gracious One, I will set
this cause before thee. It is not a new tale, but
such stories are soon forgotten — save by the aven-
gers."

Safa moved slightly aside to the prone trunk of
a tree and the boy moved with her. She sat down,
but the boy remained standing. A sullenly-golden

78 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

moon was crawling upward from the black jungle.
A titanic, red-gold, handleless drinking bowl, beaten
out at the fashioning of the world, brimming with
nectar-dew — the precious amrita that the gods
drink in mid-heaven. The palanquin bearers had
returned, one of them leading the escaped mare.
Sikandra Khan, low-voiced, began to describe the
combat to a squatting circle. He had already cut
off the tiger's ears to serve as a future charm.
Safa looked up at the young man standing by her.

"Tell me," she commanded urgently.

It was too dark for him to see more than the
outlines of her features.

"Listen, Gracious One. Not a score of years
ago, northward from this place, a maharajah ruled
the lands of his fathers and of his father's fathers,
for he was come of a line of kings old as the world
... I am his son. Look thou here."

He threw open the neck of his tunic, stooping a
little toward her. On the bared breast was a tattoo-
mark, seemingly rosette-shaped, indistinguishable in
the darkness. But Safa knew it — knew it as though
it had been stamped upon her soul — the mark of the
tiger's paw.

"Canst thou see? This sign is the seal of the
Vickrams — my heritage. Akbar took all, down to
the last anna under the mud floors. I am as desti-
tute of any of the goods of my father as the most

KAMA DEVA 79

beggarly sunnyasi at his gate, but this still remains.
There remains also the knowledge of all that
was mine by birthright and my purpose of re-
venge !"

He was pitiably boyish, terribly determined, ut-
terly void of the ability to dissemble and to lie, in
which alone would have lain his frail hope of life.
The seal of the Vickrams was set like a sharply de-
fined, blue-black birth blemish upon his breast, but
Death, in this land of listening ears, had set his own
sure seal upon him.

Safa heard and understood. Her heart ached.
Helplessness pressed upon her like a suffocation.
She pleaded with the boy to guard himself against
danger.

"Yes, but thou art young, and youth is over-rash
in judgment. Akbar is just and doubtless will make
much reparation. Do not turn from that which he
may offer thee ; it is thy right. But do no violence
to him or to thyself. Hast thou had naught of
gentleness in thy life ... no memory of thy
mother?"

With the aching eyes of her soul rather than with
the eyes of her body she saw his lips twitch and
tighten.

"My mother ! Thou hast touched a curse. Speak
not of her." His voice was bitter as the taste of
brine. A few moments of silence elapsed.

80 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

"Dost them remember her?" she inquired yearn-
ingly.

Kama Deva hesitated. Her low, expectant, trem-
ulous voice flattered his need of sympathy. In-
stinctively he felt no shadowing fear of a betrayal.

"Gracious One, I owe thee more than can be re-
paid. Thou dost wish it ; therefore thou shalt know
even this shame. . . . Vickram in dying left two
queens who had known his love and the intimacy
of his favor. One, as became a chaste and honor-
able wife, faithful to her husband and to the holy
command, followed his body to the place of burn-
ing, and met her suttee on the pyre of spices and
sandalwood. The other vanished, leaving the re-
proach of her shamefulness upon an honored name.
None knew whither she went or how. There was
not one of Vickram's followers, or of those who
served him, who would not have met death at his
slightest bidding as joyfully as a dog leaps at the
word of his master! And she, to whom it was
given by love and duty and all that is most high
and sacred in the ancient faith to die beside him,
fled . . . she was my mother."

The low, unaltering voice questioned again:

"Thou art ashamed of her?"

The answer was incisive as the cut of a knife.

"As I am proud to be a Vickram — yes."

"Wouldst not forgive her now?"

KAMA DEVA

Kama Deva flung out his hand with a curt, final
gesture, cruel with all the blind, raw-edged cruelty
of the young.

"Never. Not though I owed my life to her a
score of times ! This mark was placed upon me by
Vickram's blessed hand. By it I have sworn that I,
his son, will avenge him upon his enemies. Could
my father have a greater enemy than this woman,
who cast such insult on his name?"

There was a longer pause.

"Hast thou no tidings of her ?"

"None. But with all my soul I pray that she may
be dead."

"And if it be that she is not dead and thou
shouldst meet with her, what wouldst thou do?"

The voice in the darkness was most pitiful, pitiful
and eager; tremulous as falling tears. But Kama
Deva heard only the question, and gave his answer
to it savagely.

"Curse her. Deny her the right to call me son,
which, if she be a mother in more than the mere
name, should be sufficient punishment. But if not
stricken down with the utmost penitence and beg-
ging mercy of me on her knees, I would kill her.
Though before I struck she should see what thou
hast seen and hear my vow. Then she should
die. . . .

"It is late, and I have wearied thee with this talk

long enough, Light of Heaven. The tiger is dead,
and I do not think there will be others. With thy
permission I will leave thee. Peace be with thee,
Gracious One, who dost carry peace !"

The moon had crawled higher, lessening, paling
to honey-color, diffusing a faint dew of light that
trickled through and between the jungle blacknesses
like moisture through a choked sieve. Safa saw the
boy bend low, salaaming to her. Then — it seemed
only a moment later — he was mounted, indistinct
upon a blurred outline of horse, with old Sikandra
at his stirrup. There was a sudden jerk ; a spring-
ing forward into suddenly-urged speed; then the
thump-thump of swift-falling hoofs going, going
from them down the soft forest track, farther and
fainter. ... A jackal yapped querulously. Then a
brooding quietness supervened.

Sikandra Khan would neither question for him-
self nor permit the bearers to bestir themselves until
such time as his Gracious One should call to him.
Not even for the Dread Mother Kali, black, hor-
rible, girdled with bloody heads, would he have
broken this long-learned usage. As the night deep-
ened, squatting in the center of a dimly seen and
most apprehensive circle, he talked in a soothing
monotone.

For a space Safa sat as he had left her, listening
and watching a still whiteness that might at a little

KAMA DEVA

distance have been the whiteness of a dead tree-
stump. Then the hoof-thumps passed beyond the
outermost limit of her hearing. The lonely jackal
yelped once and was silent. And then her long-
stifled agony became articulate at last.

"He wished me peace — peace ! Oh Holy Ones —
Great Ones, where shall I find my peace? And he
hath cursed me! I am accursed, I am a creature
scorned, I have no right to move abroad save in the
night. ... I have no right to lift my eyes to him.
. . . Oh Dread Ones, why can I not be what I
seem, rather than what I am? The sweetness of
his speech is as a knife that pierceth me. He spoke
not to me ; he only cursed me !"

She was standing now, trembling, and holding
out her empty arms to the void,

"Come back to me! Come back and curse me if
thou wilt — my boy ! My cloth of gold spun by these
hands! My precious jewel! . . . Come back! Oh
I will confess it all to thee. I will seek thy mercy
on my bended knees. . . . And if thou thinkest I
am worthy of death, thou wilt let me kiss thee once
— but once, child of my womb! Oh I will pay my
debt with joy fulness and die under thy hands — my
child! My son!"

She fell to her knees and then, her arms thrown
across the prone tree-trunk and her face hidden upon
them, sank almost to the dust.

84 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

Far and far away a young man, riding furiously,
hungry and soul-exalted, big with an uplifting hate,
threaded his way between lights of fugitive villages.

And the woman he had saved and spoken with
was weeping, without hope, as she lay in the enve-
loping darkness of a raw jungle road, convulsively
shaken with bitter, despairing sobs that racked her
frame — the beautiful body which had conceived and
borne him.

Sikandra Khan had fallen silent in his tale-telling
at last and the apprehensive circle had grown almost
stiff from fear and inaction, when the Gracious One
came toward them a little way and spoke quietly:

"We will go now, Sikandra. There is a village
near this place, as thou knowest."

Ill

Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
About it and about; but evermore
Came out by the same door where in I went . . .

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.

Omar Khayyam,

The Mohammedan merchant and the Buddhist
monk sat cross-legged on an unsteady little string

KAMA DEVA 85

bedstead, but the Yogi squatted upon the naked dirt,
callous to the bite of ants and the myriad fleas
that leapt in the dust. Between them a smouldering
hump of dry dung smoked heavily, holding off
mosquito hordes, blood-thirsty as wolves long
starved for lack of human victims. A rank flame,
flaring at the spout of an oil-lamp set upon the
ground, gave what light there was, for the honey-
pale moon was hidden by a black swarm of clouds.
It was a miserable, incredibly mean little Serai. A
bamboo fence enclosed half a dozen thatched huts
wherein roosting fowls stirred restlessly. The char-
poys, upon which sat the Mohammedan and the
Buddhist, were the sole furniture of this traveler's
harborage. By another smoke-fire of dung were
the servants and the Mohammedan's riding-ox,
bound on throat and forehead with bands of blue
beads.

The merchant's spirit was sour as curds at the
dismal prospect.

"Never have I spread my mattress for sleep in
such a place of lice — never ! And I have gone from
Surat to Patna; from Allahabad to Benares; from
Ajmir to Lahore. Even to Kabul and Ispahan have
I been. There are none here to sell flour, rice, but-
ter or herbs — not a cowrie's worth. Verily if a
man goeth upon a journey he must become as a pig
or a goat."

86 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

Going afoot from holy place to holy place,
the Buddhist monk, shaven-headed, yellow-
robed, was a pilgrim from a Cingalese monastery.
He blinked mildly at the merchant across the
smoke.

"Thou art troubled, my brother, whereas I, be-
ing freed of both desires and antipathies, experience
no inconvenience from this lack. Truly all things
and places are alike to one who followeth the Mas-
ter ... but I would ask thee, my brother, for thy
soul's sake, to be patient and to commit no murder
upon the vermin that are here, for we are taught
that a hell existeth wherein the murderers of lice
are devoured by monstrous worms armed with the
claws of tigers."

The merchant, arrayed in loose garments
of striped silk, his grayish beard stained an
eccentric auburn with henna, stared shrewdly
at the placid monk, appraising him with a careful
eye.

"By the beard of the Prophet ! My friend, if ac-
count be taken of every flea I have cracked since
there was strength in my fingers then am I double-
damned already. Pshaw! If the life of a louse be
of such value, what say ye to the life of a man?
Yet the shortest bridge to. Paradise is gained by the
slaying of unbelievers. Why should worms await
the destroyer of vermin, while the destroyer of in-

KAMA DEVA 87

fidels enjoys the lovely daughters of a musk-scented
harem and can bathe in a pond of musk-scented
milk?"

The Buddhist blinked benevolently.

"My brother, thou art in grave error. A slayer
of men would be debarred even from the gross and
temporary pleasures of such a heaven of sense, and
at his re-birth would become incarnated as a scor-
pion or an intestinal parasite. By such deeds we
fetter ourselves as with chains of brass to the circle
of births and deaths; hells and heavens; treading
unendingly in the path of our own footsteps like
bullocks drawing the beam of a cocoanut-oil mor-
tar. Only in renunciation lieth liberty."

"That is truth," said a deep-seated guttural voice.

The Yogi spoke. His body, grayish with the
smearings of ashes, was stark as at birth save for a
rag of cotton small as the palm of the hand. A
string of marigolds was about his neck; a mat of
hair reached to his middle. His right arm, raised
stiffly above his head, was rigid as death and lean
as famine; the nails of the crooked ringers had
grown downward into the flesh.

"That is truth," he said deeply. "I am a fol-
lower of the law of Manu. As is recommended by
the law, I studied the Vedas and the commentaries
of the Brahmins. I married a wife and begot chil-
dren. I abandoned all things and went naked and

88 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

fasting in the forest, holding my arm aloft until it
stiffened and might not be moved. Now I contem-
plate the Supreme Soul, which is Brahma, and await
my deliverance. Renunciation casteth off the bur-
den of re-birth and attaineth union with the Un-
knowable."

"Say rather that it attaineth to the supremest per-
fection of not-being, my brother," serenely inter-
polated the mild monk. "The emancipated soul re-
flecteth not, neither hateth nor loveth. Like a lotus
lily on an unshaken pool, it floats unmoving upon
the tranquillity of eternal peace."

The Mohammedan looked from the naked, ver-
min-infested beggar hermit whose eyes were as mar-
velous, unusual and dark-lit as black opals, to the
pilgrim-monk, impersonally benevolent and unshak-
ably placid, sitting upon his charpoy in the imme-
morial attitude of one who is hailed as a holy man.
Both were destitute and undeniably at peace.

The merchant, who had two wives and five chil-
dren ; prayed five times a day automatically ; relished
a game of chess and a pilau of roast fowl and rice
mixed with currants, regarded them with mystifica-
tion. The Yogi was doubtless somewhat mad; cer-
tainly he was unclean. The monk was well-inten-
tioned, but he, too, was foolish.

"By your leave, my brothers, I will seek some
sleep. And may Allah, the Compassionate and the

KAMA DEVA 89

Merciful, avert from me these manifold vermin, or
there will most surely be murder committed before
dawn."

His mouth behind his dyed beard widened into a
chuckle of keen amusement, and he composed him-
self upon his mattress, covering his face with a
cloth.

The Buddhist and the Hindu maintained silence.
Both meditated. The mosquitoes whined thirstily
in the closeness. A coming light from without ap-
peared between the long chinks in the bamboo fence.
Two men with iron fire-baskets on poles entered the
Serai; then came a palanquin, black and polished,
with a body-servant walking beside it. The Mo-
hammedan, undisturbed, was heavily asleep under
his face-cloth.

Safa drew the panels apart. The reek of smoul-
dering dung flavored the air. She saw the men
huddled by the humped ox and glanced at the two
laden charpoys. There was a rustle of fowls in the
four-foot straw huts.

"Sikandra," she called softly.

He came to the open panelling.

"Sikandra, I cannot sleep in this place. The
house of the woman from whom we bought food
is not far from here. I will walk thither; one of
the torch-bearers shall go before us. The rest may
remain here for this night."

90 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

An older woman, empty-handed, was peacefully
intent upon the past; the younger woman, her child
on her arm, dwelt contentedly upon the future.
From without came a knocking at the door. The
women looked questioningly at each other. The
elder rose and, going to it, opened it with caution
a little way.

In the space of the partly opened door Safa saw
a figure whose smooth hair was shot with gray.

"Chapali, dost thou not remember me?" she
asked. "Yesterday we bought cakes from thee."

The woman pushed the door wide open. Between
the faint light from within and the smoky flare of
the fire-basket without stood a goddess-like one clad
in thin, clinging silk, with a stone like a swollen
globule of bright pigeon's blood resting at the exact
joining of her brows. The pervasive scent of musk
set her in a costly atmosphere apart, like the radi-
ance that fences off a pictured deity from human-
kind. Chapali did remember, and the awe of yes-
terday returned upon her.

"What dost thy Greatness wish?" she murmured,
bending with joined palms as though before a saint.
"My son is away, and we are alone, my daughter-
in-law and I."

"Only a drink of milk, Chapali, and a charpoy
here by the wall, if thou hast one that may be
spared."

KAMA DEVA 91

While the milk was being poured Safa stood close
by the low doorway. It was a mud-built two-
roomed home with a thatch of straw. She, the
homeless, the wanderer, looked wistfully within at
the exquisitely rotund brass lotas, sand-scoured to
the luster of gold; at the little blue-daubed mud
image of Siva ; at the plump, wide-lipped young girl
seated on the gray mud floor, hard and cool as stone.
She was suckling a nude boy baby. Kings might
league against kings; pyres of splendid despair
could smoke heavenward from doomed cities ; girl-
hearts, fluttering to the lure of life, be stamped like
pitiful pink lotus-buds under the hoofs of fate, and
all the while these peasant-people would move tran-
quilly and unknowingly among their milch cows and
about their hearths. Among such clusters of huts a
hundred years would pass as a day and a day.be
as a hundred years. To the mothers caressing their
children under the broad smile of the sky, honored
by their growing sons, was not the whole joy of
life laid in their arms?

Chapali, deprecatingly and ashamed, brought the
milk in a basin of dark-red chattie ware. As the
goddess-like one drank, holding the bowl with both
hands, she noted the red-golden henna stains on the
finger nails and smelt musk and sandal. Far down
in her heart an infinitely humble envy stirred as
faint and evanescent as a ripple on a placid lake.

92 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

What wonderful great folk went to and fro in the
world, unlaboring, unsuffering and glittering as
gods. Surely this was a Rani at the very least.

When the milk was drunk she wished to prepare
the inner sleeping room, but Safa would not have it
so. A string bedstead with a mattress upon it and
a quilted cotton coverlet was brought out and set
by the mud wall close to the door. Safa dismissed
the old man and the torch-bearer.

"Leave me now, Sikandra, and come hither again
at dawn."

Chapali also went at last within, wondering much
as she closed the door.

Sitting upon the poor bedstead, bent slightly for-
ward, Safa watched the charcoal embers on the
open cooking-hearth as the heart of rosy heat
bloomed and fluctuated. A low enclosing wall set
the hut within a tiny compound and on the farther
side of the hearth slept a large, light-colored, milky-
smelling cow, with long, fine lashes. Within the
hut there was no sound. Save for the tiny flame
of living warmth that grew among the coals, dark-
ness covered the earth like a dense black pall.

Safa's thought was on the past. Its bitter deeps
had been shaken and the faces of things long
drowned came wavering upward to the troubled sur-
face. She saw a girl-queen of twelve years, with a
big ruby lying upon her babyish forehead, huddled

KAMA DEVA 93

down behind a high divan in a frenzy of nervous ter-
ror. She saw a second girl, older, a woman of
seventeen, strung to the stillness of impassivity,
belted and head-bound with diamonds like a bride
for her awful reunion with the dead man she had
loved. A third face, a man's, grew upon her sight,
rising through the deeps of the bitter waters; but
immediately she covered her eyes, pushing it under
and down, back to the lowest slime that had fitly
held it ... now a just-born child is being held up
before a half-conscious, tortured girl-mother. "Be
comforted. Lo! thou hast borne a son," says a
woman's voice. "A princeling, and comely as the
child of a king." Oh Mother Durga, Mother Durga !
The child of a king! . . .

Many faces came now, the faces that had filled
sixteen years, but they blended one with another,
undistinguished. No — the face of one man stands
out suddenly from the rest. It was strong, square-
bearded, leonine. His eyes compel her, appraising,
desiring. It is an insult to be so looked upon. But
this man is splendid; splendid in brain and body
. . . has he ever dealt with a woman worthy of
more than lust? Or with wantons only; pretty
women-children, parrot-brained and parrot-fed with
sugar? Or with moon-faced, king-descended Raj-
put women, placid and unemotional as cows. Is she
still comely among younger women ? True, she was

94 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

strangely immature at twelve and ripened slowly
even after the bearing of the child ... it is seven-
teen years since a man laid hand upon her as this
man has done. The incident glows persistently in
her remembrance like the glow of charcoal in the
night . . . and what now? Is she to go back to
the villages in the lands of Vickram — to the village
people who look upon her almost as Durga incar-
nate, knowing nothing? What work is there among
them now for her? Is she to sit day after day se-
cluded within the precinct of some small temple dedi-
cated to Kali, the Black Mother; or in the cramped
women's court of some headman's house, served
timorously with gifts of food, brooding on the hun-
gry inner flame that feeds and feeds upon itself,
waiting always for a disastrous word from Delhi?
Surely it were better to return. He is there, alone,
uncounselled, held in the dangerous shadow of the
palace. This offered marriage is more menaceful
than a bare sword. And she will not be unwel-
comed — no, there is a peril there. But she is strong
and subtle — surely she is strong enough for that !

The primeval sky-gods were unfolding a tran-
scendent miracle. Across the eastward fields of dark
violets the amber-dappled dawn fled to the confines
of heaven, revealing a palely beautiful woman sit-
ting without sleep by the door of a mud-hut in a
mud-walled compound. The cow still slumbered,

KAMA DEVA 95

but within a waking child cried and the sound
stabbed Safa like a tiny knife. The charcoal was
cold on the hearth — like her own life. Agni, the
glorious triple god of the Vedas, Sun, Fire and
Lightning, had always been to her the highest sym-
bol of divinity. There was something of fire in her-
self, but it was smothered fire. What if a swift,
hot breath from without should waken it at last to
its fierce, irresistible blossoming of flame ?

Someone stood in the gap of the wall, salaaming
to her. It was Sikandra Khan.

Safa arose.

"To-day I go again to Delhi, Sikandra."

PART III
THE EFFIGY

Lo, falling from my constant mind,
Lo, parched and withered, deaf and blind,
I whirl like leaves in roaring wind. . . .
In my dry brain my spirit soon,
Down-deepening from swoon to swoon
Faints like a dazzled morning moon.

"Fa tima" — Tennyson.

OH go — go from me! Stupid whelp of a
black dog!" The prettily formed young
negress whom Suvona kept constantly
by her that her own fairness might be the more em-
phasized went quickly out of the sight of her mis-
tress and huddled down on the farther side of the
door. Here a quarter of an hour later Sita found
her, stolid and staring like a big child. The snake-
charmer remarked the nearly-closed door.
"Is Suvona within ?" she inquired softly.
The black girl nodded.
"And her humor — has it sweetened at all ?"
97

98 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

The negress shook her head rapidly, the great
gold crescents in her ears jerking violently. Sita
put out her hand to push inward the hanging cur-
tains before the doorway, but the negress caught
at her dress in scared protest.

"Shish-h ! Stay where thou art, stupid !" Sita re-
plied as she went into the room.

The chamber was in semi-darkness. The deep,
square window recess was curtained across, but a j
trace of pure daylight slipped around the edges of
the heavy curtains. Hanging from a silver chain
was a hole-pierced, enameled silver lamp, giving
sparse light, muffled and yellow. A hanging por-
celain censer smoked thinly. The air was heavy
with stale incense. The suspended lamp threw a
faint, flickering light on the cool, tiled walls. A
mass of trinkets were spilled upon the floor from an
overturned box. A tray of sweets was untouched.
Suvona lay in abandonment upon a broad, low,
ebony bed chequered with flecks of mother o' pearl.
Her hair was unbound; her supple body, twisted
half over, betrayed exasperation in every movement.
Sita squatted down between the tray of sweetstuffs
and the overturned trinket-coffer.

"Ai mi! my sister, I heard thou wert not well.
Is it so?"

She had heard nothing of the kind, and Suvona
knew it, but the blonde was beyond self-control and

THE EFFIGY 99

keyed up to expend her malice and her mortification
upon any listener. Sita would repeat it to everyone,
of course. Bah! Let her! She did not care so
much as the value of a withered fig.

"She, who told thee that, is the daughter of a
liar. Am I well ? I have strength enough to stran-
gle that Bazaar-walker, that sister of fiends, that
lewd she-devil of the jungle could I get my hands
upon her!"

"Thou speakest of Safa, the spell-caster — the new
plaything? Yea, we are all put aside in the closet
now and the door fastened. But what of it? We
of the Zenana, we know the Peerless One. Now
he is hot on the chase, spreading nets and snares,
but when she hath dropped to his lure and he hath
enjoyed her for a while he will weary and presently
return to the old ways. Were I in thy place, my
sister, I would acquire new tumbling tricks against
the time of his wearying."

Suvona sat up; her pale gray eyes, excitedly en-
larged and brightened with black paint, were evil,
furious and dry as the skin of a snake.

"Oh thou! Perchance thou canst grow fat on
such stale food? I cannot! What! Am I to lie
here and smile while this cold stone, this window-
creature plays the coy virgin with the Peerless One ?
Faugh! the impudent harlot!"

Sita remained quite unmoved. The matter

100 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

touched her hardly at all, but it had most effectually
broken the mental stagnation of the Zenana, which
now buzzed with gossip from morning till night,
and she was pleased at the humiliation of Suvona.

"Yea, it may be that she is a harlot, but one thing
is sure, she knows how to baffle a man that he may
pursue the more. This is the seventh day since she
came again to Delhi and the Peerless One hath not
yet laid eyes upon her."

"No — the she-devil! And hath he come once
hither during these seven days? Hath he sent me
even so much as a jade ear-stud? For whom did
I cause those sweetmeats to be brought here last
night? Oh I would die gladly if I might strangle
her first!"

As suddenly as she had sat up she relapsed again
upon the bed, flattening herself down upon it, bury-
ing her face in sullen fury in her unbound hair, and
hiding behind the curve of an upflung arm. This
chamber of dim, unwholesome, artificial atmosphere,
mustily over-spiced with incense, contained this per-
fect, evil-tempered blonde animal as a diseased shell
contains a pinkish pearl — the fruit of its disease.
It was no place wherein cheerful-minded folk might
long sojourn. So thought Sita. But she had greatly
enjoyed the revelation of Suvona's frantic spite. She
would offer one more tit-bit of gossip before she
went.

THE EFFIGY 101

"Hast thou forgotten, my sister? To-day Dil-
Khusha weds with the son of Vickram. Kali mai !
if report say true he is as unwilling as she ! But the
Peerless One has spoken."

There was no response, so the other continued :

"For my part, I pity her, though she is often ill-
humored and Draupadi hath spoilt her. Draupadi
is with her now."

There was not the least sign from the disordered
ebony bed. Suvona might have been deaf as well
as semi-nude. Sita remained silent a moment. She
recalled a certain string of pearls and a statement,
swollen with over-confidence, that must still be un-
fulfilled. Smiling, she got up carefully, took a
piece of confectionery from the round tray and,
avoiding treading on the displaced trinkets, went out
quietly.

A little later she was parleying before another
closed door where Madri squatted, keeping guard.

"It is useless. No one may go in to her. She
desires no one."

Madri's negation was so positive that a rose-bud
was shaken from behind her ear.

"Pshaw ! Madri. Is not this the day of the mar-
riage ?"

"Ay . . . when I come to my marrying God
grant that it be of a different sort !"

Sita looked at the girl for a second or two, faintly

102 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

smiling; then departed as she had come. Madri set
the rosebud again behind her ear.

On the other side of the door a soul was striving
tumultuously against the bars that caged it. Dil-
Khusha lay face downward on her bed. She was
half dressed, wearing only a tinselled skirt. Her
smooth, heavy, ebony-black hair was unbraided. She
wept convulsively, until exhausted, as the passionate
hysterical tempest neared its end. Draupadi, sitting
with her back against a hard silk bolster, chewed
a mixture of betel-nut and lime. She was maternal
and soothing.

"There, there, my daughter ! What must be, must
be. And, remember, thou art a Rajput on thy
mother's side and must meet thy fate with courage."

"But I cannot be a wife to this Vickram! I can-
not ! I am not a child who has seen nothing of men ;
or a woman who waits for a strange husband as
for a god. My soul is not in my body — it is in the
hands of him who is more glorious to me than a
king's elephant! In my spirit I am his wife al-
ready. His honor is my honor, and if they place
my body within the power of another man I will
destroy it."

Draupadi's placid, rather heavy moon-like face
clouded over with reflected trouble. But she raised
no protest against the gasping threat of self-slaugh-
ter that came from the lips of the girl lying with

THE EFFIGY 103

naked shoulders, uncoiled hair and disheveled
skirt upon the bed. Draupadi had been born in a
King's Zenana and a King's Zenana was still the
limit of her life; she had heard such threats before.
Often they meant nothing ; sometimes they were ful-
filled. Well, brave blood was not a heritage of
men-children only. Such courage was bred in the
bone and flesh of the race. Perhaps that ending-
would be better than the -alternative. But she loved
the child as her own. Ai mi! their fate was laid
upon them all like the yoke upon the necks of cat-
tle, and of what avail were tears? She sighed
largely and softly.

Face downward upon the bed Dil-Khusha sobbed
convulsively. For the last seven days she had wak-
ened each morning to the narrow torment of a
prison and now the impending intolerable sentence
was to be executed without further delay. There
were only thin gold bangles at her wrists, but in
spite of this she was as helpless as a prisoner loaded
with iron. Desperation had hold of her; she felt
she could not do this thing, and yet she must.

Unless death or sudden disease smote her she
would be the wife of Kama Deva before the first
stars came out. And she could not endure even
the thought of it. The artificial life of the Zenana
fostered precocity and an intense consciousness of
sex. The little world of luxurious and pampered

104 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

women, shut in by alabaster walls, was a precinct
set apart for sensual love; no other interests existed
there. Sensuousness was the very breath of the
place. The sense-clogging sweetness of the heavy
white jasmine clusters ; the eternal murmurous love-
making of a host of tame doves ; the perfume of dis-
tilled roses, of carved sandalwood; the recital of in-
terminable Arabic, Persian and Hindu love-legends
with a profusion of amorous detail — all ministered
to the stimulation of passion, to the forcing of buds
into an exotic, early bloom, evanescent, beautiful,
and delirious.

Dil-Khusha had been just such a love-hungry,
quickly opened bud. Now, at fifteen, she was a pas-
sionately loving woman, with all a woman's utter
horror of any man save one. And she was to be
wedded in a few hours to a young man who was as
strange to her as the passing folk in the bazaars.
There only remained one door, and that could not
be opened save with the sharp thrust of a knife. It
was impossible to procure any drug, for the fear of
the Great King lay like the unmoving shadow of a
cloud upon the white Zenana. She would never
feel the close pressure of her lover's lips on hers
again as on that one morning among the yellow
roses; never yield herself wholly to his love; never
bear a child to him. If she could only lie against
his breast when she drove home the knife ! But she

THE EFFIGY 105

must die alone, away from him, away from Drau-
padi, under the nuptial lamps of a stranger's bridal
chamber, and a stranger would find her first when
she was dead. Bhima, Madri, the pigeons, the
lemon-tree garden — they would all be the same to-
morrow when her body was being dressed for burial.
Why had she ever been born ? Surely her heart was
breaking !

The convulsive, hysterical weeping was the only
sound in the quiet. The girl's whole body shook
with it; she gasped rather than sobbed. Draupadi
had ceased chewing betel. She sat impassively,
watching the grief-stricken girl, with a kind of
heavy patience. A miniature gazelle, its tiny hoofs
gilded, wearing a collar of silver bells, stepped
daintily into the room. The white cat, Bhima,
curled up comfortably on an immense cushion,
watched the deer with lazy arrogance and distrust.
The pupils of his pale blue eyes were narrowed to
a vertical slit. The gazelle stepped daintily about
the room, the bells on its collar tinkling musically.

Draupadi observed the shortening of the broken
sunshine that slanted inward through the screened
window; it was nearing the hour of noon. Soon
they must dress the bride. Her poor little dove
must cease weeping now and prepare to brighten
her eyes with black paint. That disobedience to
the Peerless One's command might be even thought

of, never entered the older woman's mind. It had
never entered Dil-Khusha's. The woman of thirty-
five and the woman of fifteen were equally palace
born and palace bred.

"May the Dread Ones have pity on thee, my
child, for they have set thee a hard thing to do.1
But remember that thou art thy mother's daughter.
Cease thy crying, my little dove, for we must bathe
thee and prepare thee now. . . . Perhaps Rajah
Adhiraj will contrive to take thee from the other,
even at the last moment. He is a Rajput and I have
heard of such things."

Dil-Khusha sat up abruptly. Here was hope.
Who could tell what might come to pass?

"Draupadi! Dost thou think it? Oh if I were
sure — if I were certain of it. . . . If I could only
send some word to him!"

Draupadi had spoken at random, but now the
possibility of some counter-plan occurred seriously
to her. Anything might be possible.

"Through whose aid did he have sight of thee
at first?" she inquired, with the low-spoken alert-
ness of the practised Zenana-intriguer.

"I do not rightly know. I did not ask. But I
think Madri hath some knowledge of it."

"Maybe. Such girls are more easily bought than
a basket of marigolds. Call her in, child. Question
her, and be liberal with her so that she may not lie."

THE EFFIGY 107

"Oh, Draupadi, dost thou think that there is
hope?"

"Who shall say? We shall know better
when we have spoken with this little taker of
bribes."

Dil-Khusha, quivering with emotion, clapped her
hands sharply. Almost immediately Madri entered,
her eyes lowered submissively. Dil-Khusha, sitting
up half-clad upon her satin mattress, marred and dis-
heveled by her copious weeping, strove to speak
steadily and with authority.

"Madri, I desire thee to speak the truth to me
without fear . . . Dost thou know in what manner
he — in what manner Rajah Adhiraj obtained knowl-
edge of my summer-house and of the hour at which
I was used to go there? Tell all thou knowest!
There will be no blame for thee."

"Oh, my mistress, what should a lowly one such
as I know of such matters?"

Madri's attitude, though perfectly correct, was
exasperatingly meek and unhelpful. Then, in the
baffled pause, Dil-Khusha remembered the latter part
of Draupadi's advice. She unclasped a couple of
gold bracelets and held them out.

"Wear these, Madri. Now tell what thou know-
est." The handmaiden accepted the gift with hum-
ble reverence. (They were a heavy pair; they
would look well upon her wrists; there was no risk;

•108 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

she would tell all — decided Madri.) Then, with
clasped hands, she looked up and became voluble :

"My mistress is more generous than the season
of spring time. May the dust of the earth become
gold beneath thy feet ! . . . Through no fault of my
own a little knowledge hath come to me, which I
had almost ceased to remember. I will recall what
1 1 can, and only the pure truth shall dwell in my
' mouth. . . . Eleven days ago, as I was on my way
to Chunda, the sweetmeat seller, to fetch sugared
almonds, a man came from the shadow of the col-
onnade and accosted me. He was comely to look
at — though I scarcely lifted my eyes to him — and
garmented like the servant of a rich master. He
stopped me there in the shadow and asked me cer-
tain questions concerning thee, my mistress, offering
me a headband of turquoises. But I refused it and
would not answer him. Then he put into my hand
a giant pearl like a mass of hardened seafoam
(Madri was drawing joyfully upon an opulent im-
agination), but I would not accept it and kept my
lips closed. Then he spoke to me softly of a certain
Rajah who could neither eat nor sleep, whose soul
was dried up like grass in a drought, and my heart
melted under his words. I told him of the summer-
house and of the hour at which thou wast accus-
' tomed to go thither. Not for the turquoises nor
| yet for the marvelous pearl did I speak — I spoke

THE EFFIGY 109

from pity, and my sin was the melting of my heart."

Madri stopped, partly to regain her breath and
also because, having neatly rounded off her story,
an additional touch might spoil it.

"Hast thou met this man-servant since ?" put in
Draupadi keenly. Beneath the lavish pearls and tur-
quoise she had discerned a very good appearance of
probability.

"Oh Moon of the Zenana, I have not seen him
even in a dream. I have not been to Chunda, the
sweetmeat seller, since the day on which the white
witch came to the Durbar."

Draupadi considered for a while. The little ga-
zelle tip-toed into the vicinity of Bhima's cushion
and Bhima hissed at it — an unpleasant pink-mouthed
hiss.

"I see no other way. It may be that this man is
waiting even now at the place where thou didst meet
him. It may be that he hath waited there during
each of these seven days on the chance of thy com-
ing. If I had known of this before much might
have been done. Now we are at the very threshold
of this marriage, with scarce time to dress thy mis-
tress before they summon her for the Bride's Choice.
Girl, thou must go at once to the sweetmeat seller's.
Keep thine eyes open and thy wits sharpened. If
thou shouldst meet with this man-servant again say
to him "

110 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

But Dil-Khusha interrupted.

"No, no! Say nothing, Madri — nothing. Give
him these and tell him only that they are for — for
his master from thy mistress."

With abrupt fingers, that fluttered like little ner-
vous birds, she put a yellow rose and a tiny dagger,
cased in ivory, in Madri's hands. She had taken the
rose from a brazen black-enameled bowl that was
filled with a profusion of them. They had been
gathered in the lemon-tree garden by the walls of
the yellow marble summer-house. Draupadi looked
questioningly at her.

"I do "not want to send any other message. He
will understand. The rose will speak of — the sum-
mer-house to him . . . and of one morning. And
the other — if he cannot come to me . . ."

She turned suddenly away from them and hid her
face among the pressed and twisted cushions, hud-
dling down among them.

"Go immediately," said Draupadi sharply. "Do
as thy mistress hath ordered and return as quickly
as thou canst."

When Madri was gone Draupadi got up, sighing,
and went over to the girl and patted her bare shoul-
ders. Bhima, abandoning his cushion, sought a
patch of hot sunlight strewn with the cool yellow
flakes of fallen rose leaves, wherein he rolled in fluffy
ecstasy; then, lying supinely on his back, with his

THE EFFIGY 111

hind legs drawn up and his forepaws limp, in the
attitude of a dead rabbit, he blinked blue-eyed at
the sun.

Madri, hiding that which she carried beneath her
red muslin veil, threaded the alabaster labyrinth of
the Zenana as quickly and quietly as a cat slips
through a tangle of house-yards and rubbish alleys.
She was a trifle awed by the keen, naked edge of
tragedy that had been suddenly laid bare among the
flowers and cushions. Ai mai ! if Dil-Khusha killed
herself it would indeed be a sorrowful thing. With
what measure of intensity she was capable of she
desired that the man who had bribed her might be
there again. If he was not, Dil-Khusha would
doubtless kill herself; Draupadi would make her no
present of dresses or goldsmith's work, and there
would be recrimination and the sour after-taste of a
spoilt intrigue. It would be worth one of her new
gold armlets to her if he were there. And he was
a good-looking man, too.

Servants were numerous as ants in the Durbar
court, which was being sprinkled with scented water
and strewn with marigolds. Madri strove as nearly
as possible to walk in her own footsteps of ten days
ago. As she went slowly, looking this way and
that, she descried Chunda joking flirtatiously with
another palace girl under the wooden awning of his
stall, but it woke no desire in her to slap the face

THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

of this rival. She was getting very near the place
where the stranger had spoken to her. There were
a number of men-servants squatting or standing
near by. One stood not twelve steps from her, in
the shadow of the colonnade ... it was the man
who had spoken to her concerning her young mis-
tress.

He wore a long servant's tunic of dark cloth
and was badgeless. He might have passed for the
attendant of a moderate merchant. Two steady
eyes were concentrated upon her, held hers for a
few moments, and then the man moved slowly out
into the sunlight, going before her, but in another
direction. Madri, altering her course as though
from the intention of her errand, followed him at a
distance. About them other servants held fretful,
pure-blooded horses; women with trays of flowers
went to and fro, and the bare, curved swords of
clustered guards shone like newly-burnished silver.
The man whom Madri followed slipped into a pas-
sageway between a tailor's stall and a perfume ven-
dor's. It was dim in this passage, and the place
was invested with a closed privacy despite the near-
ness of the teeming Durbar court. Madri had gone
carefully some little way along it when she saw the
man standing facing her. He said nothing. After
a moment she freed her hand from the veil and
held out the rose and the tiny dagger.

THE EFFIGY 118

"These are for thy master from my mistress."

He took them from her, cautioning her mean-
while :

"Do not leave this place when I do. Let there
be a space between thine outgoing and mine." As
he spoke he moved past her and went straight out
of the passage. Madri was left alone.

She was astonished; then she was displeased.
What! Was she no better than a dog upon whom
speech is wasted? And not even a bangle to com-
pensate her for the anxiety of her mission!

"May he marry a pock-marked woman without
virtue," she said viciously to herself. She began to
wonder who the girl was whom she had seen joking
with Chunda.

II

. . . Does Great God

Expect I shall clasp air and kiss the wind

Forever? And the budding cometh on,

The burgeoning, the cruel flowering:

At night the quickening splash of rain, at dawn

The muffled call of birds how like to babes

And I amid these sights and sounds must starve.

"Paolo and Francesco" — Stephen Phillips.

Safa, clad in a loose silk garment open at the
breast, lay full length upon a mattress. The room

114 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

was empty of any other presence and the house was
strangely quiet in the warm forenoon.

She had found a lodging with awed and reverent
merchant folk who had had trade dealings with the
lands of Vickram. They knew of her by repute
and abased themselves to the dust before her, look-
ing also upon her coming as a lucky omen from
the gods. Had not one of the household milch
cows given birth to twins since she crossed their
threshold ?

For seven days she had kept closely within her
own chamber, and all the while the house was as a
beleaguered city straitly girt about by hungry
armies. Every day Akbar, the All Powerful,
sought by this means or by that to gain access to
rher; every day a gift, with some subtle message,
was laid at her feet. In the still, dark hours of the
night the merchant and his wife would whisper to-
gether with bated breath discussing the situation
and the munificence descending daily upon their
house like golden rain; but their fearful reverence
dominated them and they would accept no bribe.
Akbar was all-powerful, Lord of Delhi, almost of
the world, but Safa filled them with the fear, power
and wonder of the gods — was perhaps Durga in-
carnate— and had not their milch cow borne twins ?

As she lay easefully upon the mattress, Safa was
gathering her strength of spirit as a wrestler gathers

THE EFFIGY 115

his strength of body before going down into the
cleared circle where he will meet his enemy. It was
the day appointed for the Bride's Choice of Dil-Khu-
sha — a choice from which all freedom of choice was
barred; a day of crisis for Kama Deva. Through
all her being Safa felt the weird magnetic thrill that
presages catastrophe. Even as she lay she was con-
scious as it were of cords drawing her urgently,
potently toward the great white Durbar where she
would be needed. And yet — Akbar . . .

The arch-divided window opening was unscreened
by any lattice, for it overlooked an inner house-court
frequented only by the womenkind. A thick clus-
ter of some sumptuous, purple-flowered creeper grew
up from the little court over the top of one of the
high sheltering walls. Above the opposite wall some
branches of a splendidly grown orange tree stretched
over, bearing some scattered, ripened fruit amid the
heavy thatch of leaves. The unusually hot stillness
seemed as expectant as a passionate woman waiting
for the kiss of love. Safa, raised upon soft silk
pillows, could look down into the court. The pro-
fuse purple clusters extending from pavement to
wall top drew her eyes. Surely the love-god might
dwell amid such flowers, sucking honey with the
enraptured bees. Such love as came to her now
was not as the first, the almost child-love that came
with almond blossoms in its hands. No, it was the

116 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

love of maturity, of the hot-blooded, dominant man
and the full-statured, deep-natured woman, gorgeous
as the vivid purple blossoms of the creeper, fierce as
fire, vital as the breath of the living . . .

A slight sound came from below — the creak of a
door hinge. A slip of femininity stole across to the
well in the center of the court. She was the elder
daughter of the house, a girl of thirteen. No other
windows overlooked the precinct, and it was the
hour of siesta. She sat upon the well-curb waiting.
Presently there was a commotion among the
branches of the orange tree. A ripe orange fell
with a deadened thump and a few stray leaves flick-
ered down. Then a rope dropped and hung, barely
reaching to the pavement. The girl on the well-
curb rose expectantly. Slipping down the rope
came a lithe, handsome boy of fifteen; silently the
two figures blent and became almost as one in the
shadow of the over-reaching orange tree, and so
stayed for a long moment of ecstasy. A sudden
stir sounded within the house; in the tree shadow
the two standing as one fell apart; the boy and the
rope vanished as they had come and the girl slid
like a little noonday ghost to the doorway and the
hinge creaked once more. The court held only the
vines of purple blossom and the wavering shadow
of the orange tree.

Safa had watched intently the revelation of this

THE EFFIGY 117

small secret life-drama, furtive as a soundless sub-
terranean streamlet stealing on beneath the feet of
the busy household. Love — it was* the master-pas-
sion. All about her the glowing world beat like
a great heart. Sweet fruit swelled and ripened like
the bosoms of women ; white pigeons against a tur-
quoise sky murmured together, making an amorous
mosaic of mother o' pearl and lapis lazuli ; creepers
flung arm-like tendrils about the trunks of trees
and the shafts of columns; in a hundred darkly
shadowed places men sought the lips of girls hun-
grily. And she was set apart, aloof, above it all,
seemingly but a solitary pinnacle of ice. Far below
the blossom-clusters thickened and the bees slept
honey-drunken . . .

Safa stirred among the silk pillows. She frowned
a little, unknowingly. A tiny hole-pierced golden
ball containing spice rested caressingly between
her rounded breasts. She shut her eyes, turning
toward the inner darkness of the room. From
without came the tramp of horses and then it
seemed that the party had come to a halt before the
house of Ram Singh, her host, the reputable
merchant who had had trade dealings with the
lands of Vickram.

Safa sat up. An impulse seized her. She fought
it for a couple of moments, then rose quickly and
passed from the room into another where there was

118 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

a screen window projecting above the roadway. She
went to it, opened one of the hinged squares of lat-
tice work and looked through.

Below were various men mounted and afoot ; pairs
of cheetahs were coupled together like dogs and
held on a leash ; but these Safa, kneeling at the lat-
tice, saw without seeing. Her eyes were upon the
central horse and rider. The horse was a satin-
skinned black stallion, rolling a wild eye and lifting
his feet restlessly. The man who held him in con-
trol, sitting squarely in the high, gemmed saddle,
was Akbar — broad and square and strong, virile
and dominant. Suddenly, as though the woman
at the lattice had spoken aloud to him, he looked up.

For the first time since she had unveiled before
him in the full Durbar he saw the beauty of her
face and her poignant eyes. She seemed set in the
square frame of the open pane of lattice work as in
a picture. He even caught the furtive glistening of
the strung diamonds in her ears. And Safa, looking
down, saw all the passionate and desirous soul of
the man more nakedly revealed than in the Durbar.
And she saw that he was handsome.

His eyes held hers for a long moment and it
seemed to Safa as though a thin fiery arrow smote
shudderingly through her. Then, hastily, she drew
back, shut the hinged pane hurriedly and went into
the room where she had been. She was shamed,

THE EFFIGY 119

confused in spirit, unable to handle or examine that
which had hold upon her.

Presently a little handmaiden came timor-
ously to her, carrying a cage of gold wire, hung
with bells containing a captive bird of paradise. She
set down the tinkling cage in which the marvelous
bird moved nervously and bowed meekly to her
mistress.

"May Safa, the most beautiful of women, accept
as a slight gift the most beautiful of birds. Akbar,
Lord of Hindustan, begs that she will be present
this day at the Bride's Choice of his daughter Dil-
Khusha."

Safa spoke immediately : "Say that I will come,"
she commanded.

Ill

A servant, clad in dark, badgeless raiment, stood
in a slimy-floored by-street, just wide enough to
allow the passage of homing cows, and knocked
upon a door.

A shutter slid back and a woman peered at him
through a little grill. Then the door opened and
he made his way confidently through inner darkness
until -he touched the curtain folds of some heavy
stuff. He put it carefully aside and was in a room
that was windowless, lighted solely by a lamp. A

120 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

young man dressed like a bridegroom and hand-
some in his panoply as a Vedic hero-god, stood with
one hand on the cross-hilt of the sword that was
thrust through his sash. The servant salaamed
reverently.

"Well, Jaswant Singh?" said Adhiraj quickly.

The servant held out a flower and a dagger in an
ivory sheath as he replied :

"The handmaid met me at the gate of the Durbar
court, oh my master. She delivered me these in a
private place, saying they were from her mistress
for my master. According to thy order I said noth-
ing and we were unobserved."

Adhiraj took the trifles gently.

"Didst thou see the master-craftsman?"

"Within this hour."

"What did he ask?"

"Three hundred rupees."

"Did he appear satisfied?"

"He blessed thy name, my lord, and swore by
the gods that he was thy pledged servant."

"And the two carpenters working under his in-
struction ?"

"They have received a hundred rupees apiece;
know nothing, and he answers for their discretion."

"That is good. Thou shalt not regret this matter,
Jaswant Singh; thy wit in nosing out this pretty
jest of Akbar's shall cause thy children and thy

THE EFFIGY 121

grandchildren to bless thy name, for I will reward
thee well. Go now. I will come out to thee when
all is ready."

When Adhiraj was alone in the feebly lighted
room he took up the rose and the dagger. The
crushed yellow flower was faintly odorous, and felt
delightfully cool to his flushed cheek. An indefinite
scentedness, Zenana-suggesting, accompanied the
toylike knife, whose ivory case was roughened by
minute relief carvings of elephants. These carried
Dil-Khusha's message to his heart.

The flower was a symbol and a reminder of love,
the flower-like love that had blossomed magically
for a moment against his breast in the marble sum-
mer-house. And the knife ? Little, fragile Dil-Khu-
sha was the child of a Rajput woman. Adhiraj
understood the message of the knife. Suddenly
with the eyes of his mind he saw her — his love —
his chosen wife, lying dead in a red pool. Mad-
ness clutched at him. Instantly he knew what he
should do. He would head his armed retainers,
all clad in the saffron garments of despair. They
would storm the Palace of the Moghul and kill with-
out mercy. Surely when he came straight from the
blood and steel of this last hopeless fight to the
shining threshold of Heaven the Great Ones would
give her again into his arms, pure as the holy north-
ern snow peaks.

THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

Adhiraj laid down the trifles that had brought the
girl's mute, tragic message. There was no need to
consider death — yet. Was he not a bridegroom
dressed for his marriage and about to take to him-
self his bride?

Jaswant Singh led out a bay stallion from some
hidden room-like stable into the squalid street-pas-
sage that twisted between the blind mud walls. The
beautiful beast whose line for a dozen generations
had carried none less than Rajahs and the children
of Rajahs sniffed suspiciously through spread nos-
trils, peering this way and that. He was saddled
and the stirrups were inlaid with gold ; a long golden
tassel hung upon the horse's chest and the saddle
cloth was a square of emerald-green velvet. Pres-
ently the door with the grill in it opened and Adhi-
raj, dressed as an Arab horse dealer, came out. He
wore the full, dark, wide-sleeved robe of his people.
The white head cloth was bound with coils of cam-
el's hair, and he was apparently bearded. The bay
stallion snorted at him, veering sideways, but he
spoke softly and the horse steadied, staring with
luminous eyes, stretching toward him a docilely in-
quiring nose.

The single broad street which, like a wide flood-
channel, carried all the shifting, teeming under-life
of Delhi, was one long, continuous bazaar. In the

THE EFFIGY 123

open twin rows of narrow awning-darkened shops,
sandalwood, sacred pictures, moonstones, European
mirrors, betel nuts, Benares brass, ambergris, ar-
mor and the hides of tigers, deer and Himalayan
foxes could be bought. Diseased beggars, whose
skins were blotched with a ghastly pinkish discolora-
tion, rattled begging bowls to attract charity; men
whose legs were swollen to a monstrous thickness
with elephantiasis went stoically about their affairs;
slate-plumaged pigeons fluttered, indifferent to the
clamor; humped heifers meandered from shop to
shop, thrusting dewy muzzles among the wares.
Women with the crimson marriage mark upon their
foreheads, children, men and milch cows made up a
fluent, restless multitude.

Skirting the stacked earthenware of a pot seller,
stretching eager, twitching lips toward the open
corn sacks of a grain merchant, daintily avoiding
cripples and children, stepped a bay stallion, beauti-
fully bred, with mane and tail of jet. A servant led
him, and at the stirrup walked an Arab horse dealer.
There was nothing about the trio to arrest atten-
tion save the excellence of the horse.

Up the long street of shops went the two men
leading the stallion, gravely and steadily, across the
great seething square before the palace, up to the
stately gateway of the elephants. A guard of Raj-
puts commanded by a Rajput Rajah was stationed

THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

at the gate, but none were barred from entering.
The servant and the horse and the horse dealer
passed in beneath the lofty marble arch. Here were
ranged the stalls and workshops of the goldsmiths,
silversmiths, jewelers, tailors, shoemakers and dress-
makers employed by the palace folk and the Zenana.
The trio passed up for some little distance between
these palace shops, then the servant checked the
'horse a moment, looked first at the dealer, then
toward the mouth of a passageway opening between
two stalls. The Arab stepped aside to the passage
opening and the horse and the servant passed on,
heading for the Durbar court, where were many
other saddled horses held by liveried grooms.

It was excessively hot. The sweat stood like
large drops of water on the forehead of the jeweler
examining a flawed emerald in the opposite stall.
From the farther end of the passageway came the
sound of hammering. Everywhere the stir of prep-
aration could be felt rather than seen. The Arab
horse dealer sat down upon a bench by the head of
a passage. His white head cloth fell low, almost
to his eyelids, and the lower part of his face was
lost in a plentiful beard.

Old Girbur and Mulraz, the ancient and acid
palace oracle, barely noticed a muffled Arab sitting
in the shadow within ten feet of them. It was past
noon. The jewel merchant had long ago laid the

THE EFFIGY 125

defective emerald on one side and was now polish-
ing a garnet. Girbur grunted.

"There's trouble here," he said.

"There's trouble everywhere," snapped the phil-
osopher.

"Yea, but as thou knowest, Mulraz, within an
hour or less the Peerless One will give his daughter,
Dil-Khusha, her Bride's Choice before the full Dur-
bar."

"Why seest thou trouble in that? Girls must
have husbands and the world more brats."

"Because it is no choice. The Peerless One hath
preordained that she is to wed this Vickram boy.
The girl's mother was a Rajput; she is infatuated
with young Adhiraj. My friend, she will kill her-
self before the night."

"Well, one woman more or less is a matter of no
account."

This was disheartening. Presently Girbur ven-
tured almost apologetically : "This Adhiraj is pow-
erful and wealthy, Mulraz. He may stake much to
gain the girl."

"He's a fool," said the other shortly, "and fools
will ever strive to be still greater fools."

"Which they succeed in being?"

"No, for those who'd be more foolish than they
are become lesser fools."

126 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

A man coming from the passageway salaamed be-
fore them. He spoke to Girbur.

"Sir, the work is completed. Thy servant trusts
that his masters will find it good."

"That is well. I will inspect it, Mahdu, and then
send some men to bear it to the Durbar hall." He
turned to the philosopher, smiling a little in the
thicket of his stiff gray whiskers. "Come, Mulraz,
and I will show thee a subject for thy wit." Pass-
ing within an arm-length of the unmoving, head-
sunken Arab, the artisan, the old servant of Akbar
and the jaundiced court oracle went down the un-
roofed passage. It ended in a little yard shut in
by blind walls. The place was littered with wood
shavings, and in the center stood a painted life-size
wooden image. The gaudy thing was a grotesque
and hideously exaggerated caricature of a young
man, and on the breast a gilt inscription read "Ra-
ijah Adhiraj." A group of palace servants and
hangers-on were gathered round it, relishing the
glaring wooden insult exceedingly.

Girbur, halting, stared at the effigy. Then a
grunt of laughter shook him.

"Ho, Mulraz ! Is not this a work of skill ? See
how he stands — and the head so poised that it
might topple off at the least breath. Yea, and so
it will if he should show himself within the city."

Mulraz eyed the figure appraisingly.

THE EFFIGY 127

"Umph. If the Creator hath not endowed our
enemies with sufficient hideousness to satisfy our
spite we remedy the omission ourselves, so it is all
one. This may not be an over careful copy of the
countenance which God — who alone is Great ! — hath
bestowed upon our brother Adhiraj, but Akbar will
doubtless reward the artist."

At the mention of Akbar the appreciative group
about the effigy — becoming also aware of the pres-
ence of Akbar's trusted servant — were stimulated to
loud and vehement loyalty.

"Behold Rajah Adhiraj enthroned in state!"
squeaked a pot-bellied youngster, mother-naked save
for a loin cloth. "Ohoo ! Thus do I greet his glor-
ious majesty!"

He bent double in an exaggerated salaam and
then impudently protruded his tongue after the man-
ner of small boys.

"This fellow defied Akbar, the Peerless One!"
proclaimed a bearded water-carrier.

"He wished to wed the palace diamond, Dil-Khu-
sha," piped another voice. "Ho ! He looks a pretty
figure for a bridegroom, brothers ! He'd be fitter to
scare off the crows."

A cackle of laughter came at the heels of this
saying.

"That for all enemies of the Peerless One !" said
a filthy casteless nondescript as he spat at the effigy.

128 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

When the ragged gathering of loyalists had strag-
gled off Mulraz tapped the figure with his ebony
staff.

"Well, Rajah Adhiraj, what sayest thou? I see
no sign in thee of shame, anger or resentment. Pah !
What child's talk to insult the absent and jeer at a
painted post. If Adhiraj in the wood could have
become Adhiraj in the flesh these swine would have
squealed to a different tune."

"Yes," growled Girbur. "A knife in the breast
is more to the purpose than all that was ever spoken
against an absent man."

"I do not deny that it would give more pain/'
assented the philosopher acidly.

When the old king's servant and his companion
had gone by him, setting their faces to the Durbar
hall, the Arab horse-dealer stood up.

A man came carefully along the passageway. He
was the master-craftsman. He looked at the Arab
and turned back. After a slight pause the horse
dealer followed him quickly.

The passage extended into the little blind yard,
so that the place was hidden from all save the scav-
enging hawks that alighted on the low roofs round
about. The craftsman was waiting for the Arab
at the threshold of the yard. He seemed afraid.

"All is well, my master," he said huskily and
Hurriedly. "Do thou enter the image while I watch

THE EFFIGY 129

and then I will show thee what is needful. Pres-
ently the servants of the Great One will be here."

The seeming Arab nodded. Then immediately
the dark robe, the head cloth, the camel's hair and
the generous beard were stripped swiftly from him
and a young Rajput, beardless and clad like a bride-
groom, faced the distorted semi-human effigy.

A gust of bitter anger swept over young Adhiraj
as he regarded the grinning wide-mouth monstros-
ity that was labeled with his own name. Then he
smiled a little with set lips and went quickly up to
the thing. It was hollow, as he had known that it
would be, and he got easily into the narrow niche.
The nostrils were minutely pierced to admit air, as
were the eyeballs also, so he could see a little from
within. Now the man who had kept watch came
over to the effigy and hastily fitted its hollowed back
to the tall wooden shell, securing the two shaped
halves together cunningly, explaining to the en-
closed young man the manner in which they might
be broken instantly apart. Then he stood aside
from the figure. Upright upon a low wooden bloek
to which it was firmly affixed the image grinned va-
cantly, gaudily painted in white, blue, green and red,
with touches of gilt and silver. The master-crafts-
man smiled nervously, rubbing his scantily-bearded
chin. Then, seeing the beard and clothing of the
horse dealer lying among the shavings, he pounced

130 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

i

upon them, gathered them up hastily and hid them
beneath a cotton coverlet left by some out-of-doors
sleeper. He approached the effigy again.

"Can my master breathe freely?" he asked in a
low voice. A muffled "yes" came from within the
image.

When the two sturdy servants arrived, bare
legged, with small pearls in their ears and clothed
in scarlet cloth tunics, he was standing by the
mound of cotton coverlet, moistening his lips.

One of the men, stooping, endeavored to move
the figure. He straightened himself, grunting.

"Wah! It is wondrous weighty for a paltry
image."

"Thou art weak, brother. I will show thee that
it is but a fit load for a man."

The other stooped also and attempted to lift the
thing bodily, but could not.

"Ough! It hath bowels of iron." They both
looked inquiringly at the master-craftsman. He
licked his lips, came a little forward and explained
glibly:

"My brothers, the heaviness of this image is to
the purpose of the design. Rajah Adhiraj — may
his mouth be filled with dust! — is weighed down
with woes immovable, therefore it is but just that
his effigy should be weighty also."

The servants nodded. Between them, with much

THE EFFIGY 181

effort, they hoisted the figure upon their shoulders
and, grunting and groaning, padded naked-footed
out of the yard.

IV

A great square of carpet, mottled sumptuously in
peacock-blue and ruby-red, had been laid upon the
white marble floor before the steps of the judgment
seat, and upon this the nautch girls danced. Before
them and above them sat the Lord of Life and
Death; behind were ranged from side to side of
the wide hall the flower of the grandees of Upper
India ; over them arched the hollow marble roof like
the cold inverted calix of a Titan lily; on either
side squatted the musicians. There were twenty
dancers, arranged in two rows of ten. They wore
anklets of clustered bells, vari-colored skirts edged
with tinsel, and were naked from the waist upward
save for a pair of silver breast-plates finished with
tiny knobs of pink coral. The tom-toms thumped
and thudded; fluting pipes quavered suggestively,
like the wailing of a wind in the forest; harp-like
instruments twanged mellowly. The dancers wrig-
gled their slim bodies sinuously; they shuffled their
feet and their myriad ankle bells shook softly in
unison; they swayed like head-heavy flowers in a
southern wind.

132 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

Safa, seated unveiled at the right hand of Akbar,
seemed to move in a kind of waking dream. The
music; the swaying figures; the ranked kings and
princes were dream-like, but the dream appeared
right and fitting, occasioning no wonder. She and
the man beside her were being fanned with fans of
peacock feathers, for it was stifling hot, and that
also seemed part of the stately and bewildering
dream. Yet, dominating all her consciousness, was
the powerful, purposeful and aggressively masculine
personality so near to her. It seemed to over-
shadow, envelop and almost overwhelm her. Some-
times when he turned a little toward her she felt
as though she were holding at arm's length a
magnificent, irresistible and headlong animal.
'But it was taking the last ounce of her strength
to do so. She was afraid, yet she did not
wish that she had remained at the house of the
merchant — away from the boy — and away from
him.

One other thing in the Durbar drew her eyes
and her thought. It was a hideous painted wooden
image, as large as life, that was set to face the Pea-
cock Throne, at the center of the great hall. She
knew what it was, and as one looks and looks again
at the black heart of the coming storm rushing up
from the outer limit of a serene sky, so Safa
watched the wooden figure. Subtly she felt that

THE EFFIGY 133

the thing was the symbol of some approaching cli-
max.

Akbar, enthroned, splendid, his sword across his
knees, was uplifted by a hot, eager triumph. On his
left, languidly licking its paws, lay the half-grown
tiger that obeyed his voice. On his right sat the
woman he desired, whose face he had sought for
seven days. She had come; she should remain. In
a few hours she would surrender to him — she must
— and the coming night would be sweet with her
kisses. The semi-nude nautch girls posturing on
the square of carpet were his to use as he chose,
but they were only some of a great herded group
of women subject utterly to his will and desire, un-
resisting, inviting and satiating. They woke no
sensation within him, only the reflected thought of
her. And the drums of the musicians sounded like
the quick, heavy throbbing of a passionate pulse.
The sleepy, blackened eyes of the dancers were
lifted to him with a simulated amorousness that
arose partly from habit and partly from the charac-
ter of the dance. Akbar turned to Safa.

"These girls have been chosen more carefully
than precious stones are selected for a necklace, yet
they are not fit to prostrate before thee," he said in
a low, deep voice.

"My lord is pleased to judge too favorably." Al-
ways the steady putting aside of the flattering

134 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

phrase with a voice sweet and cool as milk chilled
with snow. Well, she might turn aside the point
of his speech for a little while, but in another hour,
or at the most two, his will should be made plain
to her. A surge of impatience rose in him at the
ceremony that had not yet begun.

The dance ended, the music was silenced, the flar-
ing nautch girls vanished. The musicians got up
and squatted in a cluster on the carpet square. Girl
slaves carrying heaped trays went back and forth
before the Peacock Throne, throwing handfuls of
marigold heads, the crude, vivid, golden, good-luck
flower, upon the marble floor. Abul Fazl, the Vi-
zier, stationed at the left of the throne, came a little
forward, cleared his throat and began to read from
a scroll in a loud voice:

"This is the Bride's Choice of Dil-Khusha, fairest
daughter of Akbar, who is the wisest and greatest
monarch of all Hind. She is the most exquisite
jewel in the possession of the Peerless One, her
beauty being of such potency that the trees break
into blossom at her approach and wither when she
averteth her countenance. She hath a face like the
moon when at the fullness of its luster; her joined
eyebrows resemble a bended bow, her gaze is more
languishing than that of a gazelle and more potent
than the incantations of enchanters. Her neck is
the neck of a dove and her teeth are like the grains

THE EFFIGY 135

of pomegranate. Her lips are of the redness of
coral and her complexion is fairer than the flowers
of the jasmine. Her feet and hands are like softest
blossoms, her voice is like the murmuring of pig-
eons, and the grace of her movements may be com-
pared to the gliding of a swan. Therefore ye are
commanded by Akbar, King of the World, to sub-
mit yourselves and all your possessions, so that she
may choose from among ye he that shall be her
bridegroom." He paused to clear his throat again.
Akbar made a sudden arresting gesture.

"Stay," he said abruptly. "There is one lacking
here who owes allegiance to me. Where is the
Vickram? Have any seen him? Speak, some of
you!"

The Jemadar came forward salaaming: "Oh,
Great One, he is within the palace. I saw him not
an hour since."

"Then have him dragged hither — in chains if he
will not come with any better grace."

The Lord of Life and Death was in no nuptial
humor. He had spoken. Kama Deva should wed
his daughter, even though it were at the point of a
drawn sword. As the captain salaamed his obedi-
ence there was a slight, soft movement on Akbar's
right. Safa spoke quietly.

"Hear me, oh king. At dusk seven days ago,
when my face was turned from Delhi, a tiger at-

136 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

tacked my little bearers, who fled. This young
man, riding alone in the jungle, heard its roaring,
and, armed only with arrows, killed it single-handed.
He saved my life, for the beast was almost upon
me."

Akbar turned sharply upon her, looking hungrily
— almost fiercely — into her raised eyes.

"What! This boy hath saved thy life? By my
beard! I owe him gratitude. Jemadar, seek the
young man as I have instructed thee, but give him
greeting from me and bring him hither with re-
spect."

He bent nearer to her and spoke caressingly :
"As God liveth, if the light of thy life had been
extinguished in such a manner the fall of the sun
from heaven would have appeared as a lesser disas-
ter in my sight !"

Safa made no answer. As she sat upon the ex-
quisite ivory throne-seat prepared for her, with a
little round fringed canopy of grass-green silk above
her head and the peacock-feather fans plying, she
was athrill with fear, expectancy and the foreknowl-
edge of coming stress.

Presently the ranks of the kings and captains di-
vided and a young man, followed by the Jemadar,
came straight across to the steps of the place of
judgment and stood with folded arms, looking stead-
ily up to the one seated on the Peacock Throne.

THE EFFIGY 137

He was richly clad, without jewels, but he wore
his silver-tufted turban with the air of a young, re-
sentful god. This was the first time that Kama
Deva had entered the Durbar Hall since the day on
which he had been condemned to die. Since that
day he had seen nothing of the Lord of Life and
Death save from a distance. Chafing and fretting,
he slept and ate beneath the roof of the Moham-
medan, waiting for the favorable time to secure his
long-meditated revenge. Akbar spoke smoothly:
"We greet thee, son of Vickram. Courage is the
noblest ornament a man may wear, and a brave man
deserves much honor. It hath been related to us
how thou didst slay a tiger, unaided and armed only
with arrows, and so preserved one whose life is
more precious to us than our own. For this deed
thou hast our thanks. . . . Well, sir, why this de-
lay? When thou art kneeling as befits thee I will
speak my favors."

Kama Deva remained upright, motionless, look-
ing straight at the Lord of Life and Death.

Akbar rose suddenly to his feet, furious. The
feather fans stopped swaying in the tenseness of
the moment.

"Dost thou hear me? Down on thy knees —
down on thy knees, I say!"

"I cannot bend my knee to thee." Kama Deva
spoke in a loud voice, still standing with folded

138 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

arms. Knowingly he was treading on the very
verge of death. Perhaps his hour had come and
he was to find the fulfilment of his life there upon
the steps of the Peacock Throne, before all Upper
India. When the Mohammedan raised his hand to
summon guards then he, Kama Deva, would act
quickly, for there was a dagger at his belt. The
crowded Durbar was like one listening man.

"Cannot?" thundered the Lord of Life and Death.
"That word hath cost better lives than thine, thou
yelping cub ! For the last time, down on thy knees !"
As he stood he gripped the golden elephant heads
in which the arms of the throne seat terminated.
Suddenly a hand was laid upon his, clutchingly, ur-
gently; a hand light, strong and cool as a flower.

"Oh King, be just! Be not angered with him.
It is plain to see that he is badly hurt and speaketh
truth when he sayeth he cannot bend his knee."

Akbar turned slightly. The cool hand still
clutched his own; two eyes, like a magical summer
midnight, appealed to his. The excuse was believ-
able enough; very possibly the boy was really hurt
. . . and she desired that he should go unpunished.

"It is well. I spoke in haste and thou art ex-
cused. Son of Vickram, take thy place among those
of thy rank." And then to Abul Fazl : "Let the
ceremony proceed."

He bent toward her again. "Thou seest I can

THE EFFIGY 139

refuse thee nothing. Wilt thou refuse my wishes,
Safa?"

"Oh, King ; how should such as I minister to thee
in thy greatness? Indeed, I ... I am most grate-
ful."

As Kama Deva, excessively astonished, took his
place stiffly among the rest the eyes of one there
followed him yearningly, fearfully, and a woman's
heart cried out for the stately, comely boy. Once
again she had held death from him, but he sought
death as other boys sought women, and her arm
was weakening. And as she weakened the man
beside her seemed to grow in strength.

At a sign from Abul Fazl the music broke out
again — drum, pipe and stringed instrument. Im-
mediately hidden servants opened the cages which
they held and shook out a dozen white, gem-eyed
pigeons, which a moment later were flying and flut-
tering confusedly beneath the arch-divided roof. A
group of pretty little Hindu girls, with their hair
twisted up in plaited coils at the back of their small
heads, ran into the Durbar, scattering pink and
cream rosebuds upon the strewn marigolds. Then
others throwing right and left gorgeous flowers of
gold and silver. Then came the bride.

Dil-Khusha walked slowly. She was unveiled
and dressed in clinging, gold be-spangled muslin.
Her coiled hair was adorned with clustered rose-

140 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

buds and a broad headband of pearls was bound
across her forehead. Her large eyes, lovely and
terrified as a deer's, were artificially darkened and
the soles of her bare feet were stained ruddy with
henna. Upon her little feet, as upon her hands,
were rich rings. She went forward to the steps of
the Peacock Throne and bent before her father.
She stood dazed and passive; possessed by a miser-
able despair. There was no help, and in a few
hours she must take her own life. She could feel
the thin coldness of the little knife as it lay against
her flesh. She wished to weep, to get away from
this thronged, silent, stately place. She did not
clearly know what she should do.

Abul Fazl, descending pompously from his sta-
tion beside the Peacock Throne, now addressed her :

"Oh Princess, thine are the jewels of joy to wear
upon the garments of thy maidenhood. Let this be
the token of thy love and bestow it where thy heart
doth most incline."

Mechanically Dil-Khusha took the marigold
wreath which he offered her and words which she
had learnt came mechanically to her mouth. She
turned toward the assembled line of men.

"By my most sacred privilege I choose as a hus-
band him about whose neck I shall place this wreath,
for by this token ye may know that my heart is
given."

Leaving her place by the steps of the throne she

THE EFFIGY 141

walked toward them, moving passively, almost
woodenly; the girls ranged themselves in two lines,
one on the right and the other on the left of the
place of judgment. The music became shriller and
noisier. Two pigeons still fluttered distractedly be-
neath the roof. Under her feet the strewn flowers
were pleasantly and blandly cool, with here and there
a false flower of gold or silver like a large, irregu-
lar pebble. A faint, sweet flower smell rose from
the crushed petals. A long waiting line of men
confronted her; their fiercely bearded faces were
brown as a nut; their thin, ancient beards were
stained red-golden with henna; chains of fabulous
jewels, rough-cut, unpolished, looking less than
tinted glass, were draped upon them ; and sashes of
silk muslin were swathed about their waists, broad
and stalwart as the trunks of trees. She saw all
these things dazedly, vaguely hating them. A
silver-tufted turban and a young, beardless face
caught her eye — the Vickram. In a few moments
she would have to place the wreath about his neck
as had been ordained. . . . What was that? It
was a gaudy statue, grotesque, grinning. She had
not noticed it before. There was some word
written upon its breast in gilt letters. . . . Oh
God!

Dil-Khusha gave a little strangled scream and
stopped. Several of the girls started to run toward
her, but were checked by Akbar's voice.

THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

"What! Thou dost not like thy lover's image?
Well, perhaps it may serve to cure thy disobedient
infatuation. Proceed."

Dil-Khusha, almost hysterical, half turned toward
her father.

"I cannot! I cannot! Take it away. I cannot
look at it. Take it away, or else I shall go mad !"
She might as well have appealed to a statue of steel.

"Go on — go on, I say!" And the command was
hard with anger.

Mechanically she took a hesitating step forward,
obeying. The hideous figure held her eyes. She
could not look away from it. Suddenly an utterly
reckless, desperate determination took hold of her,
filling her with a sort of joy. She was no spiritless
puppet, but a Rajput woman, with her love wholly
given. They should all see.

"By my most sacred privilege I choose as a hus-
band him about whose neck I shall place this wreath
. . . ' Her voice was high and a little strained.
As the music shrilled and shrieked in an expectant
climax she ran across the flower-scattered pavement,
in her gold-bespangled muslin, climbed the low ped-
estal and flung the marigold wreath about the neck
of the staring wooden effigy. "Let this be the token
that my heart is yielded to thee, and thee only —
my heart's beloved !"

And then she clung to the image, trembling, with

THE EFFIGY 143

closed eyes and both arms clasped about its neck.
The music stopped. There was a rustle and a mur-
mur— astonishment made audible. The two rows
of girls stared with eyes round as black grapes. But
Akbar, dangerous now as any maddened, savage
animal, rose instantly.

, "Then may God deal with the man thou lovest
as I deal with his effigy!" he thundered.

He was coming down from the Peacock Throne,
swiftly, blind with anger, gripping the naked sword
that lay always across his knees. This was the
Akbar that feared neither God, nor man, nor
woman, nor devil, nor the rogue elephant who had
stamped the life out of his driver. A quiver rip-
pled across the Durbar as men fell back a step be-
fore his presence and his furious anger. The long,
bare sword flashed up before the effigy and it
seemed as though he would cleave the statue with
his daughter clinging to it and spatter the wooden
mockery of her lover with her warm blood. But in
that instant a miracle occurred.

The effigy broke suddenly apart, falling to right
and left in two halves, and upon the pedestal stood
a young man, tall, splendid, lithe and close knit as
a leopard. At his side hung a sword, its cross-hilt
rough with diamonds, a twist of golden silk was
bound about his brows — it was Rajah Adhiraj, him-
self, in the flesh. From the upper end of the Durbar

144 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

came a girl's scream, but he stood so only for the
space of a moment. Then he stepped down quickly
and Dil-Khusha, dazed utterly by the falling of the
figure, sick, dizzy and swaying on the verge of un-
consciousness, was caught and drawn against a
man's breast and held there tightly. Then she un-
derstood that the impossible had happened and clung
to him, fearing nothing. The Durbar Hall had
grown strangely gloomy and the hot air had be-
come tense as a harpstring.

"The choice is made. Naught can undo it now.
The bride is mine — forever and ever mine."

As Adhiraj spoke there came a dry roll of far-
off thunder and the darkness seemed to deepen. At
Akbar's elbow and a little behind him stood Safa,
like a restraining spirit. No one had seen her leave
her place beside the Peacock Throne. As the long
sword flashed up again — to kill, she caught his arm
and hand, swift, strong and supple, and with the
suddenness of the effort wrested it from him. When
he turned, furious, and saw her, she was standing
at the center of the cleared space holding the sword
above her head. The slave girls, the musicians,
the kings and princes, his daughter, her lover and
himself — they were all ringed about her in a great
circle. The unnatural darkness was heavy in the
vast cavern-like place and the whiteness of the mar-
ble seemed ghastly and cold. Then she was speak-

THE EFFIGY 145

ing and her raised voice, rich and high, carried
from end to end of the Durbar.

"Behold the sword of Akbar. It hath won glory
and power. It rules all Hind, and serves king-
doms like the bloodless knife wherewith the gar-
dener prunes the fruit-bearing tree that it may yield
him a fuller fruitfulness. No king hath shed the
blood of man to greater ends, for Akbar fights for
peace, not for strife, which creates hatred and last-
ing bitterness."

Again came the long roll of thunder, nearer now
and louder. The marble walls and pillars quivered
to it like the strings of a lute. The tension in the
gasping air was as painful as the strain of a cord
tightened almost to the snapping point. Safa, feel-
ing within herself the rising of a strange tingling
tide of power, knew that the indefinable, magnetic
force always latent in her was awake and vibrant.
Only once before had she felt it so strong upon
her. Her voice rose again, almost in a cry.

"This is the sword of Akbar — look on it all of
ye! for it is drawn in anger, to be sheathed in
shame. Oh, are ye blind? Can ye not see that it
hath roused the evil spirits from their spheres —
yea, and the very keenness of the blade is warped
to vile and grossest bluntness — thus!"

The long, heavy, bared sword fell clattering at
her feet, and then musicians, princes, slave girls —

146 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

all those who had watched her and it, silent and
staring, saw that the straight, narrow span of steel
lying on the pavement two paces from her was a
dark heap of coils — a heap that shifted and melted
and unfolded as a giant cobra rose gradually erect,
swaying slightly with expanded hood. Its tiny, evil
eyes shone like blood-red rubies in the gloom. Over
this horror stood the motionless, white-draped
woman with one hand flung out palm downward
and her down-turned palm was only a bare inch
above the wicked swaying head of the thing. For
one stricken moment they looked and then the full
Durbar fell upon their faces like one man and lay
thus, smitten with utter terror. Akbar only stood
erect, hiding his eyes and shivering like a child.
Safa saw that Adhiraj and the girl were gone.
They had vanished while she was speaking. She
had held the eyes and ears of all the rest, and they
had escaped as she had willed that they should. The
effort of maintaining the seeming serpent in the
sight of all — of imposing the power of her will
upon so many — had been extraordinary, terrible.
With a sudden gasp she relaxed from the awful
rigidity of mind and will and body, swayed a little,
put out her hand as though to find support and then
recovered. With a deep roar the storm broke
above them in a heavy thunder of crashing rain..
One of the many crouching figures prostrate upon

THE EFFIGY 147

the floor of the Durbar lifted its head hesitatingly
and saw only the sword lying as it had fallen. In
another moment they were all on their feet again,
whispering, and the girls, whimpering, clinging to
each other's hands, were bunched together like terri-
fied chickens. Dimly, Safa was aware of the boy,
Kama Deva, staring at her as at one risen from
the dead. And then Akbar saw that his daughter
and his daughter's lover were gone. But before the
word was spoken that would set half a hundred
armed men upon their path Safa stretched out
her hand toward him, not speaking, and he looked
at her and was silent.

V

Oh, love, love, love ! O withering might !
O sun that from thy noonday height
Shudderest when I strain my sight,
Throbbing thro' all thy heat and light.
. . . My whole soul waiting silently,
All naked in a sultry sky,
Droops blinded with his shining eye.

"Fatima" — Tennyson.

When Safa, standing in the center of the hall of
audience, under the darkness of the coming thunder-
storm, lifted the conquering sword of Akbar and
cried on all those present to look upon it, Adhiraj
saw instantly that he and Dil-Khusha and the mat-

148 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

ter of the Bride's Choice were for the moment
thrust from all minds. There were none standing
behind or near the pedestal of the fallen effigy now,
and the lower end of the hall was empty. Leading
Dil-Khusha he drew her carefully away from the
rest, treading with caution, and when at a sufficient
distance he took the girl up in his arms suddenly
and ran with her.

At the base of one of the great-girthed entrance
pillars was a servant, standing singly and holding a
bay stallion. The other grooms and horses were
huddled in the shelter of a colonnade, fearful of
the black menace that lowered horribly above them,
dark as ebony. Not even a dog slunk in the great
waste spaces of the forecourt that was speckled over
with the yellowness of countless marigold heads.

Dil-Khusha felt the stagnant, scarcely cooler outer
air upon her face. She was set down as suddenly
as she had been caught up — saw the bay flank and
side of a horse, his beautiful profile, upflung head,
and a full eye, dark as onyx, roll sideways in
its socket. She saw Adhiraj leap into the saddle,
turn, and then she was caught off her feet again,
and drawn up onto the saddle-bow before him. As
the stallion shot forward, like a javelin from the
hand of a thrower, she was clinging to him with all
the strength of both slim arms, her face held close
to his.

THE EFFIGY 149

There was a cry and a confused shouting behind
them. Then came furious hoof-beats in their rear.
Jaswant Singh, the servant, had torn a pearl-stud-
ded bridle from the grip of the sayce that held it
and was following in his master's wake on the gal-
loping mount of an Amir.

They were out of the Durbar court and flying
down between the rows of palace shops, where star-
tled turbaned heads were thrust out at them from
the dens of merchandise. The Rajput guards at
the gate had just time to rein back their startled
horses as Adhiraj and his light, clinging burden
flashed under and out and across the great square,
scattering the folk like chickens before the swoop
of a hawk. Avoiding the winding chaos of the
bazaar street, they headed down the wider avenue,
lined with the great people's houses, to the city gate.
The clean, arrowy gallop of the Arab was swift as
the flight of a scudding bird. Dil-Khusha was not
afraid. As she clung to the silent rider, in the whirl
of this wild race, peace sat in her heart like a dove
drowsing on a sunny cornice. She did not think
connectedly; the happenings of the last hour had
been as sudden as a flash of lightning. The flying
black mane of the horse whipped up almost against
her face. Some raised goldwork on the breast
against which her cheek rested hurt her, but she
did not mind the pain.

150 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

A burst of yet more frantic speed, a clatter of
steel on stone, a challenging cry behind them and
the city gate was passed. On that instant the storm
broke. It was as though a warm ocean, that had
the sky for floor, had fallen. The stallion's for-
ward rush slackened perceptibly, and the girl gave
a little involuntary cry that was more than a gasp.
For the first time since he had taken her in his
arms in the Durbar Adhiraj spoke:

"Gods! Fate fights with the Mohammedan.
. . . Yet I shall win! Chut, swazi!" he cried to
the straining horse.

Their speed increased again as the horse was
spoken to and they swept on at a long, loping gallop
under the beating, blinding, liquid curtain of the
rain. Dil-Khusha, lying against his breast with
closed eyes, was drenched to the skin in the first few
seconds. The deadened beat of the hoofs, unvary-
ing, and the deep-toned, all-embracing roar of the
downpour dulled her senses. Passively she endured
the lashing of the solidly falling rain against her
face and the merciless drenching that had converted
the pretty spangled muslin that enwrapped her into
a clammy, streaming shroud. It was like wetness
woven into a palpable garment. She began to ex-
perience the feeling of being in an abnormal dream,
which ranges over one or two sensations only, yet
it seemed a dream of an interminable length. . . .

THE EFFIGY 151

Soon after this she must have slipped into the semi-
unconsciousness which held her till the- end and
after. . . .

Once her consciousness glimmered up almost to
the surface for a few moments. She was aware that
there was no forward motion beneath her ; that there
was no rain against her face. In a muffled way she
felt what seemed like hot lips touching her forehead.
Then something happened — some movement affect-
ing her position — and she sank softly back into the
void.

When the realization of her own existence and
identity returned again, climbing slowly up as from
some outward widening gulf, she knew that she was
lying easefully upon her back with shut eyes. And
then, like broad sunlight flooding through an open
door into a room that has been darkened, she re-
membered. Her eyes opened instantly. She was in
a small room lit dully by a hanging lamp with sides
of golden glass and she lay upon a low, broad bed
laid with a silk mattress. The frame of the bed
was of sandalwood carved with peacocks and ele-
phants, and the sweet, aromatic smell of it pervaded
the entire place. She observed that she was clad
only in a loose, white silk garment open on the
breast, and that her hair, which was still damp, was
in two heavy plaits.

Just then the curtain before the doorway was

152 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

lifted and a stout, smiling woman, with gold flowers
in her shell-like ears, entered.

"Ah, praise be to the Holy Ones! My lady has
aroused," she cried. "Ah, what a sight when they
brought thee in! The rosebuds matted in thy wet
hair and the satin of the henna almost washed from
thy feet. But all is well now, is it not ?"

The girl smiled at her.

"Who art thou?" she asked.

"Sitara, my lady. I suckled the gracious lord
when his mother could not ; when I was scarce older
than thee."

"Where am I?"

"Safe in my lord's city and in the bridal cham-
ber that he had prepared for thee."

Dil-Khusha sat up, her face burning under a flush.
A shame that was delicious, yet intense, tingled
through her.

"How long have I been here, Sitara?"

"Not half an hour, my lady. Dost thou feel fit
to see the gracious lord?"

Dil-Khusha rose to her feet slowly. Fatigue and
a dizziness lay upon her, but her lapse into uncon-
sciousness had been the fruit of an abrupt reaction
from nervous tension strung to the highest point
and now the tingling waves of sensation that swept
over her, shamefaced, but sweet as honey, were lift-

THE EFFIGY 158

ing her above all weariness into an expectant region
where she loved intensely and desired.

"I — I am well, Sitara," she said.

She refused the stout, smiling woman's entreaties
to eat, but drank a little warm milk. Then Sitara
snapped thick golden anklets about her ankles and
clasped her bracelets on Dil-Khusha's arms.

"The gracious lord will lose patience with us
women," she declared, "if I spend more time in
adorning thee."

When she had gone out Dil-Khusha was seized
with a trembling, but it was a trembling which she
did not strive to check. Only once before, a week
ago, had they been alone together in the presence
of their love, for on the two preceding mornings
she had just listened, scarcely raising her eyes to
him, and now . . .

She studied without observing it the geometrical
pattern of the black and yellow tapestry, opposite,
which was specked at regular intervals with tiny
round bits of mirror no bigger than silver coins.
Love and an exquisite, poignant shamefacedness al-
ternated within her as rapidly as a flickering flame
flares up and dies down. The small room, under
the dull amber glow of the lamp, might have been
hollowed out, close and secret, at the core of a moun-
tain with half a mile of solid rock between it and the

154 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

outer world on every side. There was no sound of
any storm and no hint of any human sound . . .
yes, a quick step — his step — was coming softly to-
ward her. Dil-Khusha stood up. The curtain was
put aside abruptly and Adhiraj was in the room.

He saw a little, exquisitely shaped girl of fifteen,
trembling slightly, clad in a loose, semi-transparent
silken garment, with her hair in two long, heavy,
jet-black plaits, and beautiful, half-frightened eyes.

"Heart's Delight, dost thou fear me?" he whis-
pered. As he took her in his arms, holding her
closely, passionately, to him, Dil-Khusha whispered,
"No . . . I — I love thee too greatly, my lord. . . .
If — if thou hadst not come I should have stabbed
myself — I had the dagger in my dress. . . . Oh
my lord it is sweet to be thy wife. . . . '

His arms were about her strongly, strainingly,
his lips were upon hers, and her shame had melted
from her like wax in fire. Her whole being seemed
only a flame of love that quivered against his breast.

PART IV

THE SIGNAL

I

All night the barons came and went,
The lords of the outer guard:
All night the cressets glimmered pale
On Ulwar saber and Tonk jezail,
Mewar headstall and Marwar mail,
That clinked in the palace yard.

"The Last Suttee"— Kipling.

AN Indian city at dusk. The broad, golden
countenance of a full moon dawned
through the haze of a sleepy saffron sky;
the shake of a bell on a humped bullock driven by
a little boy sounded intermittently; the slow, in-
evitable drifting passage of many homing cows pro-
claimed a peaceful close to the tropic day. Yet
under the perfect dreamy stillness of the twilight,
sleep-laden like a yellow poppy, there was no peace-
fulness, but a stirring and a seething; a dull, hurtful,
heavy throb of women's grief.

A girl, a bride of one month, came slowly out
into a house yard, sat down upon the well-curb and

155

156 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

bowed her head, weeping bitterly — a dim figure of
comfortless grief in the dusk. In the bazaar, where
numberless little oil flames burned, there was much
activity. Swords, knives, lances, axes, shields and
other war equipment — these were the wares about
which the men gathered, fingering, chaffering, and
their talk dripped of blood and reeked with the smell
of slaughter, while naked babies listened with round,
owl-like eyes. In a by-street a troop of bad little
boys were playing.

"Listen, all of ye," announced the eldest. "I am
Rajah Adhiraj. Which of ye will be the devil
Mohammedan?"

No one would, so they dragged a whimpering lit-
tle fellow from his mother's doorstep and made him
sit upon a throne improvised from a big upturned,
broken chattie. He wore nothing but a small silver
leaf suspended from a string about his middle.
Then they set upon him, headed by "Rajah Adhi-
raj," and beat and hustled him until his howls
brought out his mother, upon which "Rajah Adhi-
raj" and his followers fled.

In and about the palace dwelling of the lord of
the city this unusual and ominous stir was empha-
sized. A servant squatting at the head of a flight
of steps cleaning some chain-mail by the crude,
wavering light of flaming fire-baskets, heard the
uneasy trumpeting of an elephant and the shuffling

THE SIGNAL 157

and stamping of gathered horses. Somewhere, in
some semi-open hall or chamber at the back of him,
a man was speaking, passionately, with a raised
voice. . . . "They are many and we are few, but
we are Rajputs, my brothers ... I am of the house
of the children of the sun — the highest among ye.
Let any disprove it if he can. . . . They have des-
poiled our temples, ravished our women and planted
their heel upon our necks. Is our manhood forgot-
ten ? Are we the puppies of dogs to take meat from
the hand that has beaten us? Will ye strike for all
Hindustan, for your children's children, for the gods
of your fathers? My brothers, will ye ride with
me to Delhi ?"

The servant squatting at the head of the steps
heard a deep-throated answering growl in the affir-
mative.

Going within to the Zenana wing of the palace,
a girl stopped and leaned upon the broad ledge of
an oval window-opening looking out across the up-
per levels of the houses. Hollow golden globes
hung from her ears and her arms, from wrist al-
most to elbow, were cased in gold — innumerable
bracelet hoops — for Dil-Khusha was a Rani now.
As the swift night fell she rested her chin upon one
small palm, staring out above the uneasy movement
and murmur of the city. There was a flickering
flight of bats to and fro, and the haze-blurred glow

'158 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

of the low, amber moon, slumberous as though
drugged with the opium of poppies. And below
shone the unsteady flare of fire-baskets, sending up
gusts of unclean, dusky smoke, about which men
came and went and worked.

Dil-Khusha was not conscious of actual grief, but
a quietness that had its root in sorrow, rather than
joy, had settled mist-like upon her. There was no
more doubt and conflict; she had attained that for
which she had wept and agonized and striven — the
intimate and possessive love of one man. In that
attainment was begotten the steadfast inner joy
that never left her now and also a fluctuating
anxiety, sharp sometimes as a knife, for where
there is love there is always fear.

She missed Draupadi and Bhima, the Persian cat,
a little, but that was all. There was a cat here, too,
fluffier even than Bhima, and she was tinted like a
whiff of pale smoke ; but she had no dignity or dis-
tinguished arrogance. She ate anything that was
set before her, a slave to five floss-silk kittens, and
she purred upon the slightest provocation. It was
dark already. The tongues of flame below had
become very lurid, and it seemed as though a fev-
erish spirit of unrest had invaded the night.

A hand from behind was laid lightly upon the
girl's shoulder. She turned instantly and faced Ad-
hiraj. Without speaking he led her back into the

THE SIGNAL 159

darkness of the room, where she crouched down
among piled cushions, holding his head upon her
breast, and knowing that she held all her world —
the joy and sorrow of it in her arms — against her
heart.

"Is all prepared?" she whispered.

"Yea; they will ride with me against gods or
devils."

"Oh my lord "

"What is it, Heart's Delight? Is it because it is
thy father "

"No — no I cannot feel toward him as a

daughter should. I do not care . . . But I — I have
fear for thee . . . Lord of my heart."

"There is no need. It is but the risk that any
man must take if he be a man. As thou knowest,
beloved, it is either he or I, for by taking thee as
I did I plucked his very beard in his own hall, and
thy father is not afflicted with tameness of spirit.
Why he hath so long delayed to send his Amirs
against me is a riddle I cannot read, but they will
come as surely as the rains follow the drought. It
may be some ruse . . . But I will not wait his pleas-
ure behind my walls until his Mohammedans starve
us out. Who knows? There are many with me,
and there will be more when our advance is known.
Delhi hath changed hands before for lesser cause.
Would it please thee to be Rani to a ruler of all

160 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

Hindustan, Heart's Delight ? To rule in the Zenana
of the palace, where thou wert born?"

The girl bent silently till her lips touched his
brow. She had said truly that her father was noth-
ing to her now. He had murdered the timid feel-
ing she had for him on the day of her Bride's
Choice. All that she loved lay against her breast.

"Didst thou heed how Safa befriended us?" she
said presently. "My father would have cleft us
with his sword — he was so enraged — had it not been
for her. I often think of her. Dost thou think
that she brought danger upon herself by what she
did? He will permit none to cross him."

The head upon her breast moved slightly. The
young man smiled in the dark.

"Heart's Delight, there is no danger in Delhi
for the woman of whom thou speakest. Unless I
know nothing of men, she is now lodged in the
Zenana of thy father, filling his soul with bliss, her
smallest wish a law unto him — while his passion en-
dures. His madness for her was apparent before
all the Durbar at thy Bride's Choice."

Dil-Khusha laughed a little. "Oh I was blind
that day, and thou wert all to blame. . . . My lord,
thou wilt not leave me here when thou goest against
my father?"

"What is this thou askest, Heart's Desire? A
man does not take that which he prizes most into

THE SIGNAL 161

the battle with him. He leaves it securely in his
city, guarded and watched."

"Oh, I am no toy, but a Rajput woman ! I shall
kill myself with fears if thou leavest me — I cannot
bear it! Oh, my lord ... If thou lovest me ...
let me go with thee. I have no fear for myself —
only for thee — who wouldst slay my soul if thou
goest from me!"

And in the darkness with her kisses upon his lips
Adhiraj consented.

II

Heat, shimmering like quicksilver, lay upon the
drab, dwarf-like scrub that shielded the snake, the
lizard and the scorpion. The sky was blue-gray,
close, devoid of all radiance, save the white-hot sear-
ing eye of the sun. A sluggish river slipped its
brown water from shelf to shallow shelf of rock,
and on a small, rocky island in the midst of the
drying pools a tiny temple, white as freshly fallen
snow, lifted a single cupola. It was a shrine dedi-
cated to a woman who had been taken by a crocodile
as she bathed on the morning of her marriage. She
was now adored in the district as the special pat-
roness of weddings.

Many men were moving in the dusty tracks of a
high road that ran parallel with the river bed. It

162 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

seemed like a torrent of men — passing — passing,
thousand by thousand, mounted and afoot. And the
bitter glare of the sun struck white flashes of pain-
ful light from sword and lance and plated shield —
flashes that came and went and came again all down
the long, narrow, moving ranks. Horses coughed
from the dust, and at regular intervals a clump of
armored elephants, like living hillocks, would sway
past. The aged Brahmin who had charge of the
little island-perched shrine gaped from the diminu-
tive temple porch, staring under his curved palm
and his kitten, with a swollen tail, spat hysterically
at the passing army, and fled into the inner cham-
ber. It was a long, long while since armed men
had passed that way, and surely now the times were
peaceful though a Moghul ruled at Delhi.

At the center of the unbroken stream of armed
men moved an unarmored cow elephant, hung with
swinging silver, tassellated, and bearing a large cur-
tained howdah. A fan-bearer sat behind the ma-
hout, fanning someone who lay within the curtains.
By the flank of the howdah-bearing beast rode a
young man clad in chain armor, his round, spiked
helmet set with a circle of carbuncles. His mount
was a bay Arab stallion. In this manner was Dil-
Khusha, daughter of Akbar, returning to Delhi, the
city of her father. The heat shimmered upon the
drab, sun-baked earth; the horses, reeking with

THE SIGNAL 163

sweat, looked as though they had just risen from
a plunge in a river; the armed thousands of the in-
terminably narrow column, plodding in the dust,
were stubbornly patient, accepting the distressful-
ness of circumstance as oxen accept the yoke. War
was the legitimate business of their race.

Suddenly, with a slight ripple of confusion, the
column halted. Elephants swayed, flicking their pig-
like tails and flapping their enormous ears; necks
were craned and the chirping of insects became au-
dible in the dusty grass. A butterfly, large as a
small bird, hovered above the thorny bushes. Ad-
hiraj wheeled his horse outward to meet one of his
captains galloping down from the front of the halted
army. They spoke together for a few moments and
then both started for the head of the column, urging
their horses.

A little in advance of the front ranks were a group
of mounted captains. The eldest, a stout Rajput
baron, on a white mare whose tail was dyed ruddy
with henna, laid the situation before Adhiraj.

"My lord, we, thy servants, are in perplexity.
The Mohammedan, as we thought till now, was ig-
norant of our advance, yet those who ride ahead spy-
ing the country have returned upon this instant and
report that a multitude of men — many hundreds, are
approaching us. But they have no elephants and
seemingly few horses. What does my lord advise ?"

THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

"How distant are they, Shitab Rai?"

"They approach us swiftly, my lord. See ! There
is their vanguard now."

A black line, like a short inch-wide ebony rod,
laid along the horizon, was visible through the far
heat shimmer. Adhiraj frowned.

"Send out the mounted spies again, instantly. In-
struct them to ride as close as they may ; to observe
weapons, trappings and the appearance of the lead-
ers, and to return as the arrow flies. We will await
their report."

In the silence there was only the swish of the
horses' tails and the chirrup of insects. Some way
down the column a man who had been smitten with
sunstroke was dragged out of the ranks and rolled
on one side while his companions divided his equip-
ment among them. Presently a man spurring a
slavering horse reined in, threw himself from the
saddle and salaamed to Adhiraj.

"Defender of the helpless, I rode as I was in-
structed, and as I neared their front one from
among them rode out to meet me, making signs of
peace. He sayeth that they are men from the lands
of one Rajah Vickram, who was slain by the Mo-
ghul, and that they go to Delhi to seek his son who
was taken from among them by armed men many
days ago. They sent first a messenger, a woman
having power from the gods, whom they reverence,

THE SIGNAL 165

but neither she nor the prince have yet returned, and
they have come to seek them, and if need be to de-
liver them by force. I have reported the tale as it
was told me, Master of India."

Ill

That star is languorous with divine excess!
O world of wearied passion dimly bright!
Now the armed man doth lay his armor by,
And now the husband cometh to the wife.

"Herod"— Stephen Phillips.

A bright, formless flame, floating upon oil,
burned within the golden fretwork lamp hanging by
four chains from the roof. Four large jeweled tears
of green jade hung from the under corners of the
lamp-casket, and the light was dimly faint and flick-
ering. Safa sat in the shadow of a sandalwood
screen.

"Well, Sikandra, what was the message of this
man thou didst speak with in the city?"

The old servant salaamed again.

"Gracious One, as I have said, he was a villager
from the lands of Rajah Vickram disguised as a
wandering holy beggar. I met him in the great
square and he beckoned me to a quiet place where
he revealed himself. He said that, after thy going
the people waited at first in hope, then in fear, and

166 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

then became very angry. After a certain time they
took their weapons again from where they had hid-
den them."

Safa leaned forward.

"And all the active men and all the young men
stole away from their villages by tens and twenties,
and met at an appointed place. He said that they
had no true leaders, nor any fixed plan, save to pro-
ceed to Delhi and deliver thee and my lord Kama
Deva. But on their way thither they encountered
an army with war elephants and all equipment . . ."

"Yes— yes "

Sikandra Khan glanced furtively behind him and
on each side. He lowered his voice to a husky
whisper.

"Gracious One, it was an army led by Rajah Ad-
hiraj, and he also had his face set toward Delhi."

"Ah! . . . And then?"

"And then, Gracious One, Rajah Adhiraj and the
head man of the village where thou wast last enter-
tained spoke together and the villagers jojned them-
selves to the Rajah's army, but they made first one
condition."

"What was it, Sikandra?"

"It was this, Gracious One: that before the city
was attacked they should make one attempt to reach
and communicate with thee by secret means."

"To what end?"

THE SIGNAL 167

"My lady, thou — thou knowst the reverence in
which we, thy servants, hold thee. Had the mes-
senger they sent failed to meet with me they would
have accepted the decree of the gods and fought
with a good heart, but the lord Vishnu guided their
messenger and he hath delivered to me the words
that were put into his mouth. . . . This is their
message, Gracious One : 'If we, thy servants, are
assured of thine aid in this enterprise we will fight
certain of victory and every man shall be mightier
than a Rustum. But thy wisdom is beyond ours;
thy will is our law. Therefore, until mid-afternoon
to-morrow — that is when the length of all shadows
is equal with the height of that which casteth them
— we will await a sign from thee, and if the sign
cometh we, thy servants, will hold our hands from
the attatk, trusting in thy wisdom.' '

Much anxious consultation and painful choosing
of phrases had gone to the construction of this mes-
sage, concocted by a circle of village elders squat-
ting about a smouldering dung fire in the camp of
Adhiraj. With painful care had it been repeated
word for word by the messenger, who was streaked
with yellow paint and smeared with ashes. Sikan-
dra Khan had as carefully listened as they stood be-
hind a crate of fowls on the west side of the square.
Safa had sunk softly back among her cushions dur-
ing the delivery of the message.

168 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

"How near are they to this city, Sikandra ?"
"They can be at the gates within an hour, Gra-
cious One, but I do not know where they lie."

"And they will not go out to attack until the
hour of twilight to-morrow?"

"No, Gracious One, the villagers will not stir until
the time appointed for the sign hath passed, and
Rajah Adhiraj hath planned to storm the city gates
at sunset. Their messenger spoke to me of a stick
three feet high that they will set upright in the
earth at noon, and if the sign cometh before its
shadow hath grown also to a length of three feet
they will not fight — so their message says."
"And none else know of this thing, Sikandra?"
"No one else knows, Gracious One."
"That is well. Thou canst leave me."
When he had gone out she arose, went slowly to
the wide, arched window opening and leaned there,
looking down. The alabaster eyrie which held her
was a domed, seven-roomed summer-house built
upon the flat roof of a wing of the great palace,
and the window where she leaned looked down upon
an inner court of the Zenana., sixty feet below.
Above, the warm night was full of stars.

This range of aerial alabaster chambers, where
even at noon there was a coolness in the air, had
been offered to her for her use after the Bride's
Choice of Dil-Khusha. It had been tendered to her

THE SIGN AL 169

humbly, beseechingly — and she had accepted the of-
fer. Save for a girl to serve her, she was alone.
None came but Sikandra. But wonderful gifts, like
offerings at the shrine of a famed goddess, were
laid daily at the door of the seven-roomed summer-
house. And always with them came the same mes-
sage : Was it her pleasure that he, the giver, should
speak with her? And always she sent the same
answer.

She leaned far out of the window. The smell of
roses ascended from the fountain-murmuring gulf
below like incense rising from a censer. In the sky
above the swelling bulge of a cupola a bright star
flashed. The air was warm as the breath of a
woman. The abrupt and terrible thing which had
been told to her seemed to Safa like something she
had known always and had been awaiting. She
could not weigh and consider it; it confronted her
like a stone cliff reaching from horizon to zenith,
concrete, enormous, unescapable.

Presently she became vividly aware of the scores
of concubines sleeping in the many-chambered laby-
rinth below — a carefully watched garden, thronged
with girl-buds and flower-women. Yet the master
of the garden had not gone down into his paradise
to taste their sweetness . . . And it was a night for
love — passionate love; for the swimming scent of
roses, the sparkle of golden stars, the warm, all-

170 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

concealing darkness and the strong embrace of a
man who has been long denied and the surrender of
lips to his. . . .

A sensation as of bland heat, delicious and poig-
nant, flushed through her. She felt that somewhere
near — at the end of a short flight of stairs and a
length of dim-lit passageway, perhaps — the master
of the place was sleepless and desirous, and the
knowledge stabbed her with a pleasure that was
keener than steel. But there was to-morrow and
Adhiraj and . . . the signal!

The stone cliff was before her, looming between
the present and the future like a wall of adamant.
She knew what manner of signal was expected from
her. More than once before had she sent out the
strange power of her will to a great distance and
those to whom the sending was directed had heard
— or thought they heard — the sound of her voice
and the message. Such manifestations were always
dreadful, sucking up the strength of mind and body,
but it could be done again . . .

A stick three feet high set in the earth and the
length of its shadow measured ! The minds of these
village folk were simple and soaked with ancient
usage as the soil they ploughed. . . . And they
trusted to her more than to their gods. What would
be her part to-morrow?

The foreshadowing of an infinitely terrible strug-

THE SIGNAL 171

gle, vital as the blood of her heart, laid hideous
hands upon her. On the one side the beautiful face
of a boy with eyes of night — her own eyes — stared
at her and on the other loomed a figure which she
had hardly yet dared to look upon or to acknowl-
edge ; hesitatingly she stood between these two.

This woman, mature as a ripe, red-stained pome-
granate-fruit, had never wakened to the deep-rooted
sex-love that blossoms between a woman and a man.
Her son had been the child of ignorance, deception
and the clinging weakness of a girl, who was herself
only a child — not of passion. For many years the
hungry love that burnt in her had spent itself wholly
upon him — her son who prayed that she might be
dead; who must never know her as his mother;
and whom she served in secret, following from afar
with a breaking heart. And now she saw that the
silver, sword-shaped flame of vengeance which the
boy followed as a lover follows his mistress led
him only to one man: Akbar, Lord of Hindustan.

If any hand — even hers — should seek to turn
aside the boy's knife from that broad, gold-em-
blazoned breast his bitterest hate would envelop
her from that hour. He must not hate her! Her
son — her only son !

A picture rose vividly before her inner sight. She
saw the marble steps of a throne and a man fallen
upon them. Over him stood a boy terribly exultant.

172 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

A red stream that crawled twistingly crept down
the steps. The fallen man was clad in a white and
purple robe starred with gold, and he was dead;
slain by the hands of her own child!

"No — no ! Not that— not that !"

She clutched the cool sill of the window opening,
shuddering violently. Again the two figures stood
one on either side of her.

"Oh my son — my son ! If thou wouldst but come
to me ! If thou wouldst let me take thy head against
my breast!"

It was drawing toward midnight when Safa
turned from the window opening to the dim, shat-
tered glow of the pierced golden lamp, whose flame
burned steadily in the stirless air. She clapped her
hands sharply.

After a moment a Hindu girl put aside the velvet
curtain, worked with silver peacocks. She had just
roused from sleep and her heavy eyes were submis-
sive and dog-like.

"Dunga, go to those who watch before the Lord
Akbar's apartment and leave this word with them —
that I will speak with their master at the second
hour after the noon to-morrow, wherever he may
appoint."

THE SIGNAL 173

IV

"The languid lilies tire

The changeless waters weary me;
I ache with passionate desire

Of thine and thee.
There are but these things in the world —

Thy mouth of fire,
Thy breasts, thy hands, thy hair upcurled,

And my desire."

The afternoon seemed ablaze with breathless trop-
ical heat. Among the dark burnished foliage of the
garden the enormous dazzling white flowers of the
magnolias, brimming with a perfume that was like
the scent of lemons, offered their purity to the sun.
The slim shafts of palms rose high into the slum-
berous air tides. Below, the flowers rose in aspiring
spikes of bloom, or spilled themselves over the brink
of the oblong tank, lined and margined with mar-
ble, where motionless pink lotuses grew — perfec-
tion floating upon peace like the soul of Buddha.
There were breadths and close places of heavy shad-
ow; little slopes and spaces of shorn grass, smooth
as the sides of a groomed horse. A pair of white
peacocks, with delicately crested heads and trailing
feather trains, paraded like some ornate product of
utter luxury. Pretty tame deer moved gracefully

174 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

in the shaded places, and there was a faint liquid
murmur of water running in narrow marble chan-
nels through the garden to the oblong tank. The
place might have been a portion of the heaven of
Mohammed instead of a palace — paradise of Akbar
the Moghul. On all its four sides there were walls.
Two doors only gave access to it, and no window
overlooked it save one round turret opening, void
as the socket from which an eye has been plucked.

At the head of the tank, behind a row of pillars,
was a wide, deep alcove communicating with the
Zenana by a single door.

All those gathered in the tile-floored coolness be-
hind the pillars were very quiet. Sita played softly
with a little snake, green as grass, warding him
from her with a long ebony rod. The other girls
and women were idle, scarcely speaking, overawed
by the man who sat apart entirely heedless of them,
motionless and somber. The tiny splash of a fish
came from the floor of the tank.

Suvona the dancer yawned elaborately. She was
watching the Master of the Zenana out of the cor-
ner of her eye. Her spirit was hot and desperate,
and very bitter, but she had herself in control. He
had not yet spoken to her, nor looked fully at her.
She observed the direction of his steady, unmoving
glance, and an idea that was a crude species of test
flickered up in her sensual, not over-subtle mind.

THE SIGNAL 175

Rising, she stepped from the coolness of the alcove
into the blaze of the afternoon and, standing on the
brink of the tank, held a red fan above her head to
shield herself from the sun. Standing so she was
directly before the eyes of the Lord of Life and
Death, as she had intended. She wore only a trans-
parent skirt of pinkish silk, and her golden hair was
knotted up loosely. Another thought occurred to
her.

"Come here to me, thou little black slave!" she
called over her shoulder to her negress.

The girl came obediently and crouched down be-
side her on the pink marble.

Suvona was satisfied. She always looked like an
exquisitely modeled statue of alabaster beside the
negress. She turned slightly sideways, knowing that
the profile of her neck, breast and shoulder was per-
fect. Underfoot was the rose-colored marble; be-
fore her the rose-pink lotuses slept upon the sun-
swept lakelet, and her transparent, pinkish skirt was
scarcely a garment at all. The picture was perfect.
With a shake of her head her loose hair fell about
her naked shoulders. She glanced at the Master
of the Zenana, out of the corners of her paint-black-
ened eyes. He was looking at her.

She turned slowly and, leaving the tank margin,
passed back between the slim pillars into the alcove,
but not to her old lounging place. Moving in a

176 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

sensuous beauty-conscious way she stepped to where
the Lord of Life and Death sat rigidly as a man of
stone; then, slipping to the floor, she edged toward
him with a smooth, snaky movement until her
blonde hair touched his knee.

"Will not my lord look on those who burn to
minister to him and who live only in the fragrance
of his presence?" Her low voice was a desirous
murmur.

Akbar saw the fair, sensual face, with jet-black
eyebrows and lashes, that was raised to him. A per-
fume came to him from her hair and skin. The
lashes were lowered over long, wanton eyes that
were utterly shameless. She was a deliberate provo-
cation that invited openly.

"When thou art needed thou wilt be summoned.
I have not summoned thee."

His voice was cold as steel and as hard. The
world — his world — had held one woman only for
the last fourteen days. The lack of her rendered
his nights sleepless. All other matters were exas-
perating distractions, or trivial, tedious, unworthy
of consideration. There was an item of grave secret
news in the background of his mind this afternoon :
it was a matter requiring instant and decisive hand-
ling. Well, it had not come to him till the hour of
the noon sleep, and presently he would speak with
Asaf. The message which had been brought to his

THE SIGNAL 177

apartment by a Hindu slave girl at midnight was an
event of infinitely more vast import. It was preg-
nant with the possibility of fierce joy. As the day
wore toward the appointed time his impatience was
like a wild horse fighting against the curb. The
other women were no more than shadows, or slim,
pretty animals moving about him; Suvona only -by
her intrusiveness and its obvious object had roused
a cold distaste.

The blonde dancer was huddled down now
among pillows, her face hidden, feigning sleep ; but
she was rigid with hate and the blind, helpless fury
of humiliation. She could have murdered Akbar,
or any or all of the other women about her who had
seen and heard. Oh, to have her hands upon the
devil in the seven-roomed summer-house ! To be
alone with her for just one hour with a little, sharp-
edged dagger!

If the other girls and women present had not been
overawed by the somber self-containment of the
man who was their master there would have been a
gust of tittering at the complete discomfiture of Su-
vona, the self-confident. As it was, there was a
quick exchange of glances; some mute conversation
carried on by raisings of eyebrows and significant
expressions. Sita, drawing a young python from a
flat basket, coiled him about her neck and, holding
up his head, just touched his smooth, cold snout

178 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

with her lips, smiling wickedly. She had been a
favorite herself not long before, but cared nothing
now for men. She was self-sufficient, subtle and
cynical. She had seen Suvona lying on the breast
of the Lord of Life and Death, receiving every-
thing she asked for; pampered, sated with passion,
arrogant as a popular courtesan, selfish in every
bone of her body ; cruel and vain. Now Suvona was
huddled among those pillows, rejected and raging.

"Bah! Snakes were better than men, and com-
fort better than both," Sita murmured, as again a
minute fish-splash came from the lily-tank, a re-
peated sound that seemed to mark the slow passage
of time.

There was a muffled knocking on the inner side
of the door that gave access to the Zenana. At a
quick sign from Akbar one of the women rose
hastily and opened it. An old duenna stood in the
doorway salaaming.

"Speak," commanded the Lord of Life and Death.

"Oh Elephant whose shadow covereth the earth,
it is now the second hour after the noon."

"Good. Conduct all these within, mother. Let
the inner door be fastened, and if any seek to open
it, it shall be death."

Wondering and whispering, the Zenana women
rose, picking up fans, pet snakes and Persian kittens.

THE SIGNAL 179

They were unceremoniously shepherded through the
doorway by the duenna. The heavy teakwood door
closed. Akbar went to it and the lock clicked. A
score of men could hardly have forced that locked
door. The only other entrance into the garden was
through a door in one of the walls guarded on the
outer side by armed negro mutes with special and
precise instructions. The penalty for any disobedi-
ence or forgetfulness was death. Through this door
Safa would be admitted into the garden. . . .

The master of the place, standing just within the
alcove, watched and waited, passionately impatient.
Outside, the garden lay in an ecstatic swoon of
sunshine. The seclusion was absolute, inviolate.

A soft, light, indescribable sound came to him —
it was the approach of a woman. Safa, coming
slowly along the narrow path, paved with slabs of
pink marble, with the scented flowers on either hand
and the heavy, broad, blotched shadows of the mag-
nolias overhead and underfoot, was curiously dis-
turbed. Inwardly she trembled as a reflected star
trembles upon troubled water, but this tremulous-
ness was sweeter than any unstirred calm. Dan-
gerously sweet. And she was weak, too. Her
strength of spirit seemed to have gone from her.
And she was afraid of the man she was going to
face . . of herself. Yet she would not have

180 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

turned back even if she could. How much should
she tell him of the thing she knew? And then —
there was the signal. . . .

The overpowering lemon-scent of the magnolia
flowers drugged the air; the fallen petals of roses
lay upon the marble path ; hot silence held the heart
of the garden paradise. The curving path led into
an open space where the sun smote an oblong sheet
of lotus-bearing water, and Safa saw a strong,
squarely built man standing alone at the threshold
of a pillared alcove.

She came slowly on, seeing, without knowing that
she saw them, the pink lotuses crowding upon the
surface of the tank. She realized suddenly that she
did not know just what it was that she was going to
say. As she came nearer the words that were in her
mind seemed to leave her.

Now she was in the shadow of the alcove close to
him, facing him. He did not speak. She looked
aside from him, not able to meet his eyes. The
silence was terrible, revealing hidden things as no
speech could have done. She burned as though she
were naked before him. She must speak.

"My lord's garden is beautiful as paradise." Her
voice was low, but under her control.

"My paradise is a wilderness to me, Safa, unless
thou wilt share it."

He also spoke low, but with a force that seemed

THE SIGNAL 181

to stamp the words upon her soul. She parried the
direct assault quickly, uncertainly.

"Thou hast a world in which there are millions
such as I."

"Millions such as thee! Are diamonds scattered
as freely as the wayside stones ? Safa, I am neither
demi-god nor devil, but a man of the same flesh and
blood as other men. I love thee. There is my
weakness and my strength. Since the hour when I
first saw thee my nights have been without sleep
and my days a desert. All other women have be-
come as shadows to me."

Safa felt as though she were standing on the
sheer brink of a gulf. Her eyes were opened and
she saw that at the bottom of the gulf lay an irre-
vocable surrender — unimaginable and terrifying in
its sweetness. She stood perilously, unsteadily upon
the extreme verge. Almost without knowing what
she said she answered him.

"Thou — thou wouldst not speak so to me if all
that I am and all that I have been were known to
thee."

His instant hot reply was like a sword stroke
beating down defense.

"I care not what thou wert. I can see what thou
art. Such beauty can have known naught but
beauty."

"Thy generosity is worthy of thee. I thought

182 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

thee cruel. When a woman hath sorrowed much
she is grateful for such words, my lord."

"Hast thou, then, known much sorrow?"

There was wonder, almost unbelief, in his voice.

"Only one, my lord, yet it hath sucked all else
from my life. . . . Thou canst not know how bitter
my life hath been."

He came closer to her. They were face to face
in the shadow of the alcove. Her eyes met his and
she saw that she could not hold him from her for
more than a few moments longer. An exquisite,
poignant sensation, shot with fear, swept over her.
He was speaking again, rapidly, passionately, a re-
sistless torrent suddenly loosed.

"I do not care to know. What is it to me if the
perfect lotus lily once harbored a worm? I love
thee. Tell me that the luster of the Koh-i-noor be-
comes dim beside the light of thine eyes and I will
listen to thee. I love thee ! Even the splendor of
the sun at the noon of day is but a jewel which
lights upon thy head! Wouldst know how much I
love thee? As God liveth I will hunger and thirst
for thee no longer ! . . . Safa ! . . ."

He had her in his arms. In the grip of his
strength and passion she was helpless as a child.
By a blind instinct she had avoided the contact of
his lips. She felt as though she were enveloped in
a flame of exquisite fire, and in that instant, as the

THE SIGNAL 183

fierceness of his passion overcame her, she knew
that she loved him. As he held her she saw with
a feeling that was almost terror how the inviolate
solitude of the garden walled them in. Dazed, glow-
ing, yielding to the fierce pressure of his arms, she
was swaying upon the utter verge of surrender —
swaying — yielding . . .

A faint, unmistakable human sound — the drag-
ging shuffle of a slipper on the paved path — came
distinctly through the breathless stillness.

Instinctively the two standing in the shadow of
the alcove — the man and the woman he held — fell
apart.

Safa, flushed, breathing quickly, one hand at her
breast, gazed almost apprehensively in the direction
of the sound, bewildered and unsteady.

The man who for an instant had overpowered her,
body and spirit, stood tugging unconsciously at his
short, crisp beard. It would not be well for who-
ever had dared to violate the intimacy of this locked
paradise at such a time.

Out into the open, with head bent, looking neither
right nor left, shuffled old Girbur, who had served
Akbar for twenty-five years with the dumb, incuri-

184 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

ous faithfulness of a dog. Never lifting his eyes he
shuffled on to within six feet of the Master of the
Zenana; then he prostrated himself flat on the
marble.

"Oh Lord of the East and West, by thy grace,
the mighty Asaf awaits thy bidding."

There was a short silence. Had it been any other
of his servants the Lord of Life and Death might
have struck before the man could have spoken, but
it was Girbur, whose shoulders were rounded with
long years of loyal and intimate service. The mem-
ory of an explicit order given on the preceding day
and unrevoked because forgotten suddenly returned.
Girbur was without blame in the matter. And it
would not be an ill thing if this Amir should see
the woman here — alone with him. The report of it
would be noised abroad, and she be the more surely
pledged to him.

"Let him enter here."

The order was curt, but controlled. The old ser-
vant rose to his hands and knees, straightened,
salaamed and shuffled off. There was another
silence.

An indefinable, slight shadow was upon Safa's
face. . . . Asaf . . . Asaf . ... It could not be the
same . . .

A white peacock, spreading its tail into a mon-
strous fan, gave a hoarse jarring scream. A man

THE SIGNAL 185

had come from under the magnolias and was ap-
proaching. A tall, bearded Mohammedan, deep-
chested as a powerful horse, he was burnt almost
to the blackness of a Tamil. As he neared them
Safa, who had been looking toward him, stepped
backward into the deeper shadow. She had a curi-
ous, set look, but made no other sign. She was un-
veiled; the shrouding silken drapery had slipped
from her when Akbar took her in his arms. With
averted face she waited in perfect stillness five steps
from Akbar.

The tall, sun-tanned Amir, who was without or-
nament save for his jade earrings, saluted the Lord
of Life and Death deferentially but without abase-
ment. In a certain manner he was handsome.

From a distance he had noted the unveiled woman
and had studiously kept his eyes from her. Akbar,
still tugging at his crisp beard, spoke to the pur-
pose.

"My friend, when I sent word to thee yesterday
it was to speak of small things; to-day, a little be-
fore noon, I received news of a greater matter.
Rajah Adhiraj, with fifty elephants and a large fol-
lowing, lies in the deer forest that is to the west of
the city and he proposes to attack at sunset."

Safa caught her breath in a little sharp gasp.
The Mohammedan captain stiffened instantly.

"Peerless One — is this certain truth?"

186 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

"Those whom I employ find that it is wiser to
avoid falsehood."

"Lord of India, thy mercy hath overflowed its
natural boundaries like a too-fruitful river. Why
does this man still live?"

"Hast thou not discovered, Asaf, that a greater
victory lieth in the humbling of foes than in the slay-
ing of them ? And Adhiraj hath wedded my daugh-
ter according to the Hindu rite. To strike at him
is to destroy her, for she will meet her suttee at
his funeral pyre. 'Tis a vile and hideous custom.
I pity her. It is no crime to love. . . . Asaf, thou
hast rendered me loyal service for more years than
thou and I care to remember — pay homage to thy
master's enchantress."

He half turned toward Safa, indicating her. Her
stillness was almost rigidity and her face was still
averted.

Without a word the tall Amir, bending gravely,
salaamed to her. As he raised his head he looked
for the first time full at the woman of whose pres-
ence he had been aware throughout. At the same
moment Safa, compelled by the very greatness of
her fear, turned her averted face to his. Their
eyes met.

The man confronted a woman of extraordinary
beauty, equally of flesh and spirit. She was mar-
velous, tragic. And a ruby, brighter than pigeon's

THE SIGNAL 187

blood, on her brow — yes, it was the same! An in-
credibly perfect oval jewel such as might not be for-
gotten even in seventeen years rested at the joining
of her brows.

The woman, terrified, looked into the bold, cal-
lous eyes that for many years had haunted her
uneasy sleep. Hate, shame and loathing surged
through her. As the recognition leapt into his
stare she strangled a sharp cry. The pause had been
only a matter of three or four moments. Akbar's
voice, imperious, already redolent of possessive
pride, came abruptly:

"Well, Asaf, what thinkest thou of this Light of
Heaven?"

"Peerless One, such beauty seemeth to me like
a moon-lotus, remembered even after many
years."

"Thy admiration is well interpreted. Go, now,
my friend. Let these rebels be surrounded before
they are prepared to plant their sting, but spare all
those that ask for mercy. And if it be possible,
secure Adhiraj alive. Thou hast full authority in
all things, as ever."

It was a definite dismissal. As Asaf entered the
fragrant shadowed tunnel where the path ran under
the magnolias he was conscious only of complete
astonishment. That face again! After seventeen
years! And she was here with Akbar, as his new-

f!88 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

est mistress. What a child's face it had been when
he saw it last; extraordinarily beautiful even then,
and wet with tears.

He had come to a sharp turn of the path. Ahead
lay a hot, wide band of sunshine, and full in the
splash of light stood a boy clutching a naked knife.
It was Kama Deva. He was listening — listening in-
tently. Then with a quick, furtive movement he
parted the stems of a screen of young bamboos and
disappeared. There was a slight rustling and then
warm silence save for the lisp of a thread of water
running in a marble groove beside the path.

In the pillared alcove by the lotus tank Safa,
shaken to the depths of her soul, faced Akbar again
alone. Something frozen within her had melted
suddenly into liquid flame at the moment when he
took her in his arms. She knew that now she
would — she must — yield, unless . . .

His strong, eager hands gripped hers, drawing
her to him. In a moment he would kiss her lips.
The exquisite danger ravished and terrified her.
With a supreme effort she looked him full in the
eyes, agonizingly concentrating the power of her
will.

"Sleep . . . Sleep . . ."

She whispered it more with her mind than with
her lips. They were standing breast to breast. A
sudden growing warmth thrilled her at the contact,

THE SIGNAL 189

but the force of her will was concerned with another
matter.

For some ten seconds the stubborn spiritual con-
test engaged all her strength, for the nature of the
man was unyielding as steel, and he was wrought
to the full heat of passion. Then, abruptly, the
strain relaxed, as when one of two wrestlers sinks
suddenly in the struggle. The strange power had
mastered him. His grip of her hands loosened and
she freed herself from him gently.

"Sleep is the loveliest gift of the Creator. Sleep
—Dream . . ."

She spoke slowly, still looking him in the eyes.

The man drew a long, slow breath. Safa spoke
in a deep, inward voice.

"Yes . . . Yes . . . All Hindustan is but a land
of dreams, and her people are dreamers — dreamers
all. Legions come with shouts of war ; we fight and
fight, then sit and dream again. The Greek, the
Turk, the Arab and the Afghan — they pass before
us like the shadows of the night, and the Indian,
sitting in saffron on the Ganges banks awaiting
the redemption of mankind, dreams on ... Oh
precious, precious sleep . . ."

Presently Safa looked up from where she sat
holding his head upon her knees. The man was
sleeping profoundly. Outside the quiet was un^
broken even by the splash of a fish. There was a

190 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

new look in the woman's eyes and about her mouth.
Hitherto Safa had feared only him whose sleep she
watched; now she feared herself. As she held his
head she yearned toward him with an intensity that
almost terrified her. A touch — a momentary con-
centration of the will would waken him to give her
all for which her strong, suddenly-born love hun-
gered. The possibility of passionate rapture and
imminent tenderness, more wonderful than an ar-
dent dream, swam before her like a golden mist.
. . . What was it that held her from him?

With the pitilessly clear sight of her mind she
saw a room in a palace and in it two girl-queens,
one fear-struck, desperate, clutching wildly at for-
bidden life . . . and the callous, amorous eyes of
a man pleading, promising . . . and at the last the
chaste, haughty face of a boy. Oh gods ! She was
sinful, shamed and accursed! . . . And yet the
mother of her son. Suddenly the slanted shadow
of a pillar appealed to her remembrance as though
charged with some sinister significance. . . . She
had almost forgotten the signal !

Very cautiously and solicitously she disengaged
herself from the sleeping man. Was the appointed
hour past? How could she discover it? All sense
of time had left her since she entered the garden.

A plain ebony rod two feet long lay upon the

THE SIGNAL 191

pavement. Sita had left it when she was hurried
into the Zenana with the other women. Safa saw
it. She recalled the method mentioned in the mes-
sage. Taking it she fixed it upright, one end planted
in a crack between two pavement blocks of marble.
From its base to the sheer brink of the tank was
an exact two feet, and its shadow was now only a
bare three inches from the brink. There was scant
time to decide — only till that slim shadow grew to
the tank edge. Akbar knew of Adhiraj, but not
of the men from the lands of Vickram; their force
— withheld, or joined to his — must decide the issue.

Safa knelt by the upright ebony rod. An en-
tranced, shimmering calm seemed to hold the world.
Behind her the sleeper breathed deeply and evenly.
Once she turned her head to look at him — a long
look.

"I cannot do it. 'Tis — 'tis treachery. I'll send
the signal to withdraw them."

A quick, cautious footstep sounded and Safa, ris-
ing instantly, faced Kama Deva, knife in hand. The
shock was more violent than if it had been a vision
of one long dead. She did not speak. The boy,
tense as a leopard on the alert, peered sharply about
him. Seeing the sleeper, he gave him a keen,
startled scrutiny and came close to her. She saw
that his face was terribly exultant, coldly savage,

'192 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

and in his eyes there was a light like the bitter
white radiance that the sun smites from a steel
blade.

"Oh thou wondrous woman ! Sikandra hath told
me all — and it is thy work, for in thy name they
have risen — my father's people — my people! Delhi
will fall to-night, but Akbar shall die now. I have
sworn it; it is my right. Immediately I had heard
I came hither like a thief, fearing he might die by
some other hand in the sack of the city. Oh, I have
lived for this day!"

Safa heard and understood. She could not think
or reason. Her eyes were on the short, keen-stab-
bing blade that the boy clutched. A tiny trickle of
wonder, as to how he had contrived to break into
the garden, wandered through her mind. They
were standing at the brink of the tank, with the
heavy magnolia jungle behind.

When he questioned her as to the appointed hour
of the attack she answered mechanically, telling him
all she knew, even to the signal and the significance
of the ebony rod. The boy listened in an ecstasy
of revenge. As she ceased speaking he turned
from her abruptly, and went softly over to the sleep-
ing man.

Frantic terror seized the woman. Oh gods ! He
must not . . .

Kama Deva, after a long, hungry, fascinated

THE SIGNAL 193

stare, turned toward her again. His eyes were
bright as fever, and his nostrils dilated. He spoke
in a quick, breathless voice.

"He sleeps — the tiger sleeps. He's trapped. He's
caged. See how the shadow lengthens to the brink !
A few moments more and our five thousand men
will join with Adhiraj !"

Behind them there was a violent rustle of leaves
as someone broke out into the marble-floored open.
As Safa turned to meet him she knew that it was
Asaf. The climax had come. Screening the boy
from him she said calmly: "What hath hastened
thy return to us, Amir?"

"Thy treachery."

She looked him straight in the eyes.

"Take care. My weapons are as sharp as thine."

A little sneering smile twitched the man's hard
mouth.

"What weapons hast thou that could do me any
injury ?"

"Akbar's love of justice . . . and of me."

She said it steadily. The boy behind her drew a
sharp breath, and she felt as though he had struck
her with his clenched hand.

"Wouldst thou threaten me ?"

"Even with betrayal."

"Betray me, then !"

The utter callousness in his voice was like a blow.

194 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

The next moment he had seized Akbar by the shoul-
der.

"Wake, oh King! Awake!"

And then the woman remembered that uncon-
sciously she had withdrawn her will from the
sleeper. She had forgotten to maintain her do-
minion of him in the stress of other matters. The
power could not always be summoned to meet her
need — and it was now too late.

The sleeping man stirred reluctantly and half
turned ; then, becoming suddenly aware of the heavy
hand upon his shoulder, he struck it from him with
an inarticulate exclamation and struggled to his feet,
dazed, shaken with fierce, instinctive suspicion.

"Who dares— Asaf? What is it? What doth
this mean?"

The man who had wakened him spoke rapidly,
an accusing arm flung out toward Safa.

"Peerless One, this woman whom thou hast
trusted hath conspired with Adhiraj against thy
precious life. As I left thee I saw this Vickram
cub lurking like an assassin in the garden. Fear-
ing evil to thee, I spied upon him and overheard the
full tale of their treachery as he spoke with the
woman."

Akbar was looking at Safa. Her face, as he last
remembered it, had been close — very close — to his,

THE SIGNAL

raised a little, and that beautiful mouth was at his
mercy. He was bewildered. Safa saw it. She
struck desperately with the sole weapon that re-
mained to her.

"Hear me, my lord — hear me ! This man speaks
in malice! He ruined me — ruined my life when I
was young and helpless — a child not twelve years
old! Such as he are begotten by devils, not by
men! It was the deed of a devil! I will tell thee
how I have been abused !"

The shame, the terrible hate and the bitterness
that had been dumb within her for seventeen years
had found a voice. She flung out her quivering
arms toward the man who had wakened her to a
passion of love. Her eyes were like dark stars.

"My lord, she delays. When the shadow of that
rod which she hath set upright hath reached the
tank edge five thousand men who fight in her name
will join their force to Adhiraj. Unless she sends
a signal before that shadow reaches the lip of the
pool naught can stay them — it is a matter of mo-
ments, Peerless One . . . This signal is a sending
of the spirit — some Yogi work. She told the boy
of it ; I heard the full plot."

He had paid no more heed to the passionate ac-
cusation of himself than if she had kept silent. He
spoke rapidly, urgently, with quick, sure gestures.

Akbar frowned. Still looking at Safa, he spoke
slowly, reluctantly, in the manner of one expecting
a strong and confident denial.

"Is it true?"

The tragic eyes of the woman were raised to his.

There was a silence.

Behind her the boy spoke sharply and suddenly:
"Be proud to own the truth!"

She lowered her eyes and said it tonelessly:
"Yes."

The hand of the Lord of Life and Death clenched
on his dagger hilt with a spasmodic clutch. Red
fury seized him, blind and bitter, for he loved her
with all his strength.

"So — so — " he said thickly, "by thine own
acknowledgment thou art a traitress ! I have poured
niy soul into thine ears to nourish a serpent that
would strike at me! As God liveth! ..."

His clenched hand went up as though to strike
her. Involuntarily she turned and caught at Kama
Deva's arm that had been suddenly raised against
Akbar. He saw the movement and a streak of scar-
let flashed before his sight as an insensate jealousy
clutched him by the throat.

"It is this misbegotten cub thou lovest! This
puny, snapping cur whose beardless face attracts
thy kisses! Then — be it so! I offered thee my
love — thy answer is war ! Let it be war ! Thy life

THE SIGNAL 197

is in my power — give the signal to withdraw thy
force!"

"Oh ! Let me speak "

"The signal — the signal!"

Safa stood between the furious man and the
proud, hard-lipped boy, unflinching as a shaft of
stone.

"I will not do it."

"Once more — the signal!"

"I will not do it."

"Then I will find a means to make thee! Seize
this cub, Asaf !"

In a flash the powerful Amir had the boy by the
arms. Kama Deva fought against him like a young
lion caught in a net, but the older man was twice as
heavy and hardened almost to iron by twenty years
of war. As they struggled grimly with each other
the woman caught her breath sharply ; once her hand
went to her throat as though she were choking. In
three or four moments Kama Deva, breathing
quickly through distended nostrils, confronted Ak-
bar, his arms bound behind him with Asaf's tas-
seled sash.

"Take him to the turret — thou knowest what to
do — and put him to the test."

"It shall be done, Peerless One. Here, go be-
fore me, young spawn of treachery !"

Drawing his dagger he drove the boy at the

198 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

point of it to the heavy door which led into the
Zenana. The Amir unlocked it and it swung in-
ward without a sound. Behind it was a second
door, shut fast ; then came the steep steps of a nar-
row stair. Asaf and his captive crossed the dark
threshold and were soon swallowed from sight as
they began to ascend the staircase. The muffled
sound of their feet came dimly.

"What wouldst thou do with him?"

The fear in the woman's voice was pitiful. The
Lord of Life and Death gave a short, savage laugh.
For the time being he was less a man than a fierce
animal, exasperated to madness and utterly with-
out mercy.

"Dost thou love him well? We will see how
much his life is worth to thee !"

"His life ! Take not his life ! The fault is mine!"

"Then thou shalt save him and by the deed re-
deem thy fault."

There was a slight sound above them. Catching
her by the wrist he drew her out to the unshaded
paved space at the head of the tank.

"Look up," commanded Akbar.

Above the pillared alcove a single cupola-roofed
turret jutted out from the blank, forty-foot marble
wall. In it was a round window opening, and
through this opening came a dark, bowed head — •
Kama Deva's. Instantly a huge, cleaver-shaped

THE SIGNAL 199

blade, broad and bright as an axe, swung down-
ward, checked, and hung quivering two or three
inches above the boy's bared neck. After a mo-
ment or two it rose and dropped again, falling a
shade lower.

Akbar's grip on her wrist tightened cruelly.

"See — see how the knife falls! Nearer and
nearer to the neck thou wouldst caress !"

The woman cowered from him, covering her eyes
with her hand.

"Oh hideous — hideous! I cannot look upon it!"

"Wilt thou give the signal? A moment hence
there will be naught save a headless trunk for thine
embrace."

A shuddering, inarticulate cry came from her.
She had sunk to her knees, distraught. The voice
went on, brutal, gloating, sparing her nothing, with
a kind of deliberate savagery.

"Wilt thou not watch it? There is no uncertain
aim. One heavy strike and the blood runs from a
deep, gaping gash — another and the head is off. It
will fall right at thy feet !"

Tearing herself away from him, Safa stood sud-
denly erect, her eyes dilated with a horror beyond
words.

"No, no !— not that— not that !"

She had reached the utmost limit of her endur-
ance, of her self-control.

"Then — wilt thou give it now?"

"Anything — anything! But spare him!"

"No — I command !" was hurled in a sudden, pas-
sionate cry from the boy himself.

Safa's hand went to her throat. Her brow con-
tracted in an ecstasy of agony.

"Oh gods!— what shall I do?"

"Avenge my father!" came from the vehement
young voice, fiercely insistent. There was not a
quiver of fear in it.

The woman flung out her hands as though plead-
ing to him.

"I must — I must save thee!"

"I'll hate thee if I live!"

With silent, sickening sureness the knife, which
had risen a moment before, dropped again — so low
that the edge appeared to graze the naked neck.
Safa's outstretched hands clutched together and her
answer broke from her almost in a scream.

"I — must save thee!"

"I'll kill thee!"

The knife lifted for another fall.

"The last stroke is near. The signal — now!"

It was the man beside her who spoke — quickly.

"Yes — yes — I will!" She said it in a dry, gasp-
ing whisper, turning a little toward him.

"I swear to kill thee!" It was the boy's cry,
quivering with frantic anger.

THE SIGNAL 201

Safa's hand went to her forehead, uncertainly.
Her eyes closed. Her hand dropped. She stood
like a figure entranced, her face slightly raised. The
breathing life behind the beauty of her seemed to
retire, leaving her a statue-woman adorned with
gems that glowed like fresh blood and sparkled like
tiny crystals of ice.

Akbar, a couple of steps from her, watched her
with a kind of fear. The shadow of the ebony rod
just reached the brink. The silence was absolute.

With a long shudder and a catch of the breath,
Safa's eyes opened. She swayed as though from
weakness, her knees giving way beneath her, as the
man caught her and held her up.

"I — have spoken. They — will not fight against
thee!"

Her head fell back upon his shoulder and her
eyes closed again.

ASAF
I

IN a narrow, semi-circular turret room with one
round window opening, beyond which the sun-
shine smote the broad, glossy leaves of mag-
nolias, a man and a boy stood near together in the
circumscribed space.

Asaf roughly unbound Kama Deva's arms. "By
my beard! thy stars have been propitious. Thou
hast escaped most narrowly from death." He spoke
grudgingly.

"I would have chosen death," replied the boy,
who was furious and unstrung. Asaf, with folded
arms, looked him curiously up and down.

"What is thy name?"

"Kama Deva, last of all the Vickrams."

"Yea, I know that is thy claim, but it was thought
that the line of Vickrams ended when the last Rajah
died in the sack of his city."

"That is false. Look here !"

With quivering hands the boy tore open his tunic
at the neck, baring his breast. A circular tattoo

203

204 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

mark of an indigo-blue tint stood out sharply upon
the golden-hued skin that was hairless as the face
of a girl. Asaf stared at it a moment.

"A tiger's paw ! The seal of the Vickrams." He
took a step backward, his face darkening.

"Yes, it is as I saw it on the day when Vickram
fell. ... I thought that I had slain him, but as he
lay at my feet his right hand moved, tearing at his
garment until he had laid bare his breast with that
same sign upon it; then, with his stiffening fingers
turned inward toward the mark, he sat up straight,
blind, bleeding, and gasped 'Revenge1 at me. Then
he fell back dead. It was most horrible."

For the moment Asaf had forgotten the presence
of the boy as he muttered his remembrance in his
crisp, black beard.

Kama Deva, listening, stared at him as a creature
might stare at a snake, paralyzed by the very enor-
mity of what he had heard. His right hand felt
blindly for the handle of his dagger. Asaf saw
the movement and understood it.

"Enough of that ! Son of a dog ! Get hence."

Tall, broad and powerful as any big, heavily-
framed animal, Asaf seemed to fill the narrow place.
A growth of jet black hair was visible on the outer
side of his forearms. A heavy curved sword hung
at his flank.

Kama Deva looked at him silently. His beautiful

ASAF 205

face was hard as a mask cut from amber marble.
It was as though he were taking within himself
some wordless, terrible and irrevocable oath. Then
he turned from him and went slowly out, with his
head lifted proudly. The sound of his feet upon
the stair came distinctly in the quiet. A bee hummed
in through the round window of execution, carrying
the yellow dust of flowers. Asaf followed the boy
heavily out of the turret, cursing him as the snap-
ping cub of a dead traitor.

Safa's consciousness, which had all but left her
after her spirit-sending, crept back very gradually.
She became aware that she was lying at full length
among cushions with some one near her who moved
slightly from time to time — breathing heavily. It
seemed to her that she was rising from the depths
of deep waters to a broadening light which she
feared, for the blank gulfs were merciful, immers-
ing the exhausted mind and body in bottomless pools
of peace, as soothing as the arms of an unseen
mother cradling her child upon her breast. But the
light broadened more and more, and as she rose
toward it irresistibly her fear increased. . . . Now
she had reached the surface and she knew that there
was daylight about her. Involuntarily her eyes
opened, meeting the gaze of the man who leaned
above her.

206 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

At the sight of him full memory flashed over her.
She shuddered from head to foot, pain clothing her
like a garment.

"Have I — have I been long thus?" Her voice
was low and uncertain.

"No. Art thou sick, Safa?"

"Not sick. It is always thus with me after
the sending of my will. It will pass in a short
while."

She lay looking up at him in silence and then
spoke again, painfully.

"I cannot bear that thou shouldst judge me as
thou hast — that thou shouldst think I would work
treacherously against thee. I did not. This thing
was planned without my knowledge or consent.
When they brought me word of it and of my share
in it I sent my handmaid to procure me speech with
thee, and when I came hither to-day it was to give
thee warning. . . . Dost thou believe me ?"

Akbar, who knelt on one knee beside her, looked
down at her with hot, hungry eyes.

"I cannot do otherwise save believe thee, Safa.
. . . Thou art too beautiful. If I were but certain
that thou hast not given thy kisses to that Vickram
whelp! . . ."

His voice rose hoarsely, harshly, and Safa saw
how the veins stood out upon his forehead. She
could almost have laughed hysterically, but the

ASAF 207

piercing mental pain she suffered strangled the over-
wrought impulse and filled her eyes with tears.

"Oh thou art mistaken ! Indeed thou art. I ...
do love him — but as a young brother. He is only
a child. Canst thou not see that I speak the truth
to thee?"

She half rose on her elbow with all the naked pain
of her soul in her eyes, and Akbar, looking at her,
saw that it was true. He bent nearer to her and
was about to speak, but Safa raised herself to her
knees among the cushions, holding up her hand with
a quick, arresting gesture, listening intently. Be-
fore her, as she knelt among the satin pillows, the
horseshoe arches and slim columns of the alcove
set the sunny paradise beyond them in a fragile, ala-
baster frame. The marble pavement, pink as a rosy
shell, was polished like a mirror. From somewhere
within the shut Zenana behind them came the muf-
fled, mellow plucking of some stringed instrument.
It was like looking upon a garden of the gods from
a pavilion of idyllic delights, where war and death
and sorrow were things unbelievable. Yet in the
turret above them hung the knife of execution. Her
own heart was bruised almost to breaking, and now
her intuition was telling her, urgently, insistently,
that she must go to that deer forest outside the city
where presently there would be a killing of many
men. She had learned never to disregard that ur-

208 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

gent inner voice, for it spoke always for him who
was flesh of her flesh and bone of her bone.

It was only a moment or two before she spoke
again.

"My lord, is it possible for me to go to that place
where Rajah Adhiraj is encamped ? I feel — I know
that there will be some need of me. . . . Thou
canst send me guarded if thou fearest any treachery,
but if it be possible I must go — immediately."

She rose to her feet, unsteadily, and he rose also,
consuming her always with his eyes. There was a
short silence.

The man did not seek to fathom this sudden and
very strange request He turned it about curiously
in his mind, considering it only as it bore upon his
own desires. Yes, she should go if she wished it —
but in his company. He also desired somewhat to
be present at the rout of these rebels. And after-
wards neither man nor god nor devil should hold
him from her.

"The wishes of Safa, Queen of Women, shall be
a law to him to whom they are expressed. Asaf
hath not yet left the city. We will accompany him
—thou and I."

A SAP 209

II

An elderly, crimson-turbaned man was sitting
cross-legged in the flickering shade of a cluster of
bamboos. Before him a patch of bare earth had
been swept smooth and clean ; a three- foot stick was
planted upright, and a white line had been drawn
upon the ground, toward which the slim shadow
lengthened, just touching it now as with a finger-
tip.

If Mulhar Rao was not actually asleep he was so
near to that condition that he trod closely upon its
silent heels. Forced marches and broken nights
spent in the open are bad for a stout village head-
man. Above him the million leaves of the bamboos
whispered to each other the faint stories borne to
them by the forest winds. Their myriad murmuring
voices were in the slight ceaseless touch of leaf on
leaf.

Mulhar Rao was treading again the single street
of his birth village. Now he was not Mulhar Rao,
but a holy mendicant with ropes of false hair hang-
ing down his naked back. And his milch cow, Muti,
came down the street toward him with her calf be-
hind her. He knew that she was an incarnation of
Kali, and groveled in the dust to worship her, offer-
ing her a sandalwood box containing a European

210 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

hand-mirror. Then someone spoke to him saying,
"Do not join thy force to Rajah Adhiraj ; do not
join thy force to Rajah Adhiraj. . . . Do not. . . .
Do not. . . ."

He knew who it was that spoke as he pressed
his face into the dust of the village street, but even
as he did so he became aware that he had slept and
was now waking. The voice still spoke to him, in-
sistent and actual. Mumbling a disjointed and hum-
bly apologetic greeting, he scrambled stupidly to his
feet. He was alone. The little space shut in by
jungle thickets was empty save for himself and the
stick planted in the cleared circle. He saw that the
shadow had fully reached the mark.

Mulhar Rao began to comprehend the thing that
had happened. He felt bewildered, elated, vastly
important and not a little afraid. There was not a
shadow of doubt in his mind. Safa had spoken
from Delhi and he had heard her voice. There re-
mained only to obey and to spread abroad the won-
der that had befallen him. He stood for two or
three moments contemplating the stick and its
shadow with scared satisfaction, and then forced his
way out through the close thickets.

It was the single cell of a little forsaken tempie-
hermitage, once the shrine of a forgotten forest
deity served by two hermit Brahmins, the last of

ASAF an

whom had died half a lifetime ago. The small stone
room was dim, for it was windowless, and the open
front of it looked out into the close, tangled riot of
the forest, surging up to the very threshold.

The figure of the god was still. The place had
been swept and a thick, bright rug was laid on the
ancient floor. Two women sat in the faint musty
dimness before the god — Dil-Khusha and a very
aged crone. Little Dil-Khusha, bejewelled and per-
fumed like a delicate small flower, leaned forward
watching the other with strange eyes. A subdued,
settled sadness dwelt on her child-face.

The aged woman was very, very old. Her arms
and legs were like brown sticks, dry, stiff and brittle
as the limbs of a mummy. A shock of coarse white
hair fell round the shrivelled jaw-sunken face in
which only the eyes had life. A single cotton sheet
was drawn shroud-like about her. She was speak-
ing in an old, old voice that, like her body, was well
nigh worn out.

"My child, long, long ago I was even as thou art
— rounded and soft as the petal of a flower, with
hair like a veil of midnight blackness. I loved the
hooped gold on my wrists and ankles, the sweet
cakes and the thoughts of motherhood, even as thou
dost. At five years old I was betrothed to a boy
of seven, and when I had reached twelve years and
the marriage was about to be consummated, on

212 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

that same day my husband was bitten by a snake
and died, and I became his virgin widow. It was a
bitter thing, was it not? I used to watch the lotus
flowers turn from white to brown and die away,
comparing them to myself as I was living out my
warm youth in barrenness and declining to a sterile
age. I hungered and thirsted, suffering in my
spirit what those lost in a desert without water suf-
fer in their bodies, for all things budded and bore
save I alone, and I was still so young. That is
long, long ago, for I have lived the length of three
lives and more. Then I put aside from me all those
things which men and women seek for and enjoy —
those things of which the tissue of their lives is made
— and I went into the lonely places of the trees, with-
out fear of life or death or of the want of food. I
found rest; my eyes were opened, and I gathered
knowledge as one gathers berries from a bush. . . .
My child, all which thou dost see and hear and feel
and suffer is no more than the flicker of sunshine
and shadow upon a stone in the forest. Those
things which men account real and true, which they
see with their eyes and touch with their hands, are
of less substance than the dreams of their sleep.
Those other things which they account foolish and
bodiless and unreal have more reality than a moun-
tain of granite or the armies of a king. We are like
a child looking down into a lake in which are re-

A SAP 213

fleeted stars and trees and cities; thinking in our
foolishness that they are indeed what they seem, and
that the grass and flowers and fruit-bearing trees
about us are but the reflections of those others in
the lake. But I have raised my eyes from the de-
ception of the still water; I have seen the flowers
and have eaten the fruit; turning from that which
is not to that which is." The worn out voice ceased.

Dil-Khusha spoke softly: "I do not understand,
mother, but it soundeth true."

"It is the truth. Thou dost mot find it in the
bazaars or in the temples or in the ways where men
walk. But in the naked places of the ancient rocks
it comes upon one, treading more softly than a
jackal. In the hidden lost pools of the forest one
may see it as the twinkle of green light in a dark
emerald ; in the stone chambers of tree-buried cities
older than the forest it lairs like the wolves. Some-
times it broods above an aged skull, and sometimes
above the silver and copper ornaments of dead
women. Often times it crouches upon the knees of
an unworshipped idol. I have sought truth in its
hiding places for seventy years, and now I can
scarcely see even thy face, my child, and can scarcely
walk at all, but soon I shall seek it with the clear-
visioned eyes of a redeemed soul." As she ceased
speaking she rose up and crept totteringly out of the
shrine.

THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

Dil-Khusha, alone, sat very still, feeling rather
than thinking. To sit silent in the old hermit-shrine
brought a sense of isolation as though she were in
an island cave lost in the wandering wastes of an
unknown sea. The dimness had a greenish tinge.
An undercurrent of faint, furtive sounds and move-
ments flowed beneath the absolute quiet. The stone
cell was cool as a grave. It was difficult to realize
that the forest was of no great extent, and barely an
hour's ride from Delhi. The aged woman, who was
gone, abode in a shelter of branches hard by the
shrine.

Dil-Khusha unknowingly began to turn one of
her armlets slowly round upon her bare arm. . . .
What gulfs separated the present from the past ! A
month ago she had been a child in her father's Ze-
nana, a world of marble walls and Persian roses;
she was utterly ignorant of men. Now she was a
woman in the war camp of her husband, living, suf-
fering and fearing for one man. A little smile flick-
ered on her lips as a picture came to her of Drau-
padi — Draupadi with her betel-nut and silver spit-
toon— set down in such a place as this. The help-
lessness and consternation of the stout Rajput Rani
would be almost tragic. Then she wished suddenly
that it could be so, for Draupadi had been almost
a mother to her. The strange things spoken of by
the aged woman cast long, unreal shadows across

ASAF 215

her mind; she did not fully understand, but there
was a vague comfort behind them. Often now it
seemed to her that the only thing that had reality at
all was the flame of her love.

The open front of the shrine was darkened as a
man entered quickly. The girl rose instantly and
he held her a moment, kissing her. They were
alone together in the narrow, low-roofed twilight
before the defaced image.

"Lord of my love, have they received a signal ?"

"Yes, Heart's Delight, and they will give no aid."

"And now "

"We stand as we stood at the first. Fear noth-
ing. They do not even dream of war in Delhi."

A sound from without reached them. Releasing
her, Adhiraj went out from the shrine. The girl
slipped down again upon the rug, watching to see
what might appear. But the almost obliterated,
thead-like path that led to the tiny temple turned
sharply away from it, and six feet from the thresh-
old stone any creature — man, horse or tiger — might
pass unseen behind the all-concealing density of the
jungle. Dil-Khusha heard the voices of two men
— nothing more.

A dozen yards from the shrine the trail, dim as
the path of a single stag, ran across a glade of knee-
deep grass. Here, as in an audience chamber of
the deer forest, Adhiraj waited, for a man had come

216 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

out from the camp telling him of one who demanded
urgently to speak with him. A careless butterfly
flickered above his spiked helmet where the circlet
of carbuncles showed a sullen red.

A horse, urged recklessly, broke into the glade
at its lower end and was reined in abruptly, blow-
ing and quivering. The tasselled trappings upon it
spoke of a royal stable. It had been ridden furi-
ously. A young man, sumptuously clad, flung him-
self from the saddle, stumbled, caught at the horse
and came up to Adhiraj.

For a few moments the young Rajput leader took
the boy for a stranger. Then he recalled him. It
was Kama Deva, the Vickram, who had threatened
Akbar to his face at the time of the coming of Safa
and had defied him before the full Durbar at the
Bride's Choice.

"Peace be with thee, brother," he began, aston-
ished, but grasping nothing of the significance of
his appearance. The boy looked straight at Adhi-
raj with furious, bitter eyes.

"Peace! There is no peace for me or thee this
day!"

"What dost thou mean?"

"This — this ! Safa, whom, as thou knowest, could
by a word have sent thee such a force as would
have given Delhi into thy hand to-night, hath with-
drawn all succor from thee, leaving us death and

ASAF 217

defeat; for the Moghul hath discovered thy plans
and even now descends upon thee."

"Akbar knoweth this ambush?"

"Yes, he knows, and may the bones of his ac-
cursed spies be blasted with rottenness! I would
have yielded my life to gain thee aid, knowing that
with thy strong arm and such a force behind thee
the city would have fallen before the night and the
carcass of the Moghul could have been flung to the
dogs! But Safa — guided by the mad perversity of
women — cast victory to the winds to save my life.
What devil's mockery to give me life when only
death could fulfill the purpose of my life!" The
frantic bitterness in this passionate outburst was
terrible to hear. Then Kama Deva spoke again in a
hard voice curtly :

"All hope is lost. Retreat instantly if thou
wouldst not be meat to feed the Mohammedan's
viciousness."

Adhiraj looked at the boy. He was clad, like a
Rajah's son, in a dark blue velvet fringed and em-
bossed with silver, and a silver plume swept back-
ward from his lightly twisted headdress of sky-
blue silk. He was pathetically young, and as beau-
tiful as a fair-skinned Circassian girl.

"What wilt thou do, my brother?" asked Adhiraj.

"That which I have to do remains still to be
done. I have sworn an oath. ." His hand

218 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

dropped upon the hilt of his sheathed dagger. "It
is my hope that thou mayst escape the Mohamme-
dan. Fare thee well." He caught the hanging
bridle, leapt upon the horse and crashed back into
the jungle.

Unhesitatingly Adhiraj turned, passing slowly
along the path that led to the shrine. Dil-Khusha
sat as before, her hands idle, thinking, listening,
waiting. She heard the step that she listened for
through all the waking hours of her days. He was
coming back to her. Her heart quickened, as it did
always, no matter how short a time he was away.

He entered the shrine in silence, and silently took
her in his arms, holding her fiercely as he had held
her on the night of their marriage. An ominous
fear laid its cold fingers upon the girl.

"What is it?" she whispered. "Tell me, Heart
of my Heart."

"Heart's Delight, thy father hath discovered
everything and is already on his way to destroy us.
. . . When the men of Vickram abandoned us even
now there was much hope, for Delhi, taken unaware,
might fall before a lesser force than mine, but now
there is only — death. For I will not retreat from
him, to be trapped and slain at his leisure. There
will be no aid from the princes of the ancient blood
— they are dogs licking his hand. So it is death,
Heart's Delight."

ASAF 319

He laid his lips upon hers and felt in that close
pressure the strong shudder that struck through her.
Then she clung to him with all her slight strength,
her face against his breast, but when he raised her
face the dark child-eyes were dry. She looked at
him wordlessly, and the unutterable tragedy of the
look was almost beyond his endurance.

"Ah, Heart's Delight, have courage. . . . '

"I — do not fear. Thou knowest that I will fol-
low thee — Oh my Lord, my love !" A violent shiver-
ing swept over her. The young man clasped her
still closer to him. She was soft and frail as a
child. But she did not weep. After a silent, strain-
ing moment he whispered: "I must go now — my
beloved. I may not come to thee again before all
is over, but thou wilt follow me — my wife."

Dil-Khusha felt the desperate pressure of his lips
again, felt him withdraw himself from her embrace,
unclasping the clinging of her arms with hands that
seemed to tremble and then — she was alone.

The darkness of the place seemed to rush upon
her with a sound of thundering wings, the solid
earth melted into void beneath her feet, and with
his name upon her lips she fell prone upon the rug
before the forgotten forest god.

220 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

III

By thy cold breast, a serpent smile,

By thy unfathom'd gulfs of guile,

By the perfection of thine art,

Which passed for human thine own heart;

By thy delight in others' pain,

And by thy brotherhood of Cain,

I call upon thee and compel

Thyself to be thy proper Hell !

"Manfred"— Byron.

In a square marble room lit by high placed lat-
tices of pierced alabaster a single carpet strip lay in
the center of the floor. About this chaste empti-
ness moved a tall, white-draped woman swiftly, rest-
lessly, silently.

Safa was utterly exhausted in soul, in mind and
in body ; yet she was wrought up to a quivering un-
rest and a tension of spirit which she could not re-
lax. A subtle conviction possessed her that she her-
self, Akbar and the boy, together with many others,
were being irresistibly drawn toward the central vor-
tex wherein lay the consummation of their fates.
The approaching roar of the abyss was already
sounding faintly in her ears. She was glad rather
than afraid. The struggle between the passionate
woman and the passionate mother was rending her
soul in twain — he hated her now, had cursed her,

ASAF 221

had sworn to kill her. . . . Her heart was like a
handful of ashes. There remained only to succor
and defend him until the end — which her prescience
told her was very near to them now — and then to
die.

There was a sound of footsteps without. Safa
paused in her silent, overwrought passing to and
fro and stood uncertainly. Akbar had had her con-
ducted to this place to await the preparation of
the elephant that was to bear them both to the deer
forest. Had he sent for her already? She drew
her veil across her face and listened.

A man's deep voice spoke suddenly : "Did Vick-
ram have a son ? Mulraz, search thy memory. Did
he have a son?"

The woman in the empty room became instantly
rigid, leaning forward with head inclined. Every
nerve in her body shuddered at that deep, virile
voice; she loathed and feared it even as she loathed
and feared the man. A poignant sense of danger
stabbed her. They could not know that she was
there. Breathing soundlessly she crept to the heavy
brocade curtain that masked the doorway and laid
her ear almost against it.

"How should I know," replied the philosopher
peevishly. "Maybe he had a score and knew no
more of it than thou knowest of the father of thy
greyhound's litter."

222 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

"Thou knowest my meaning, fool!"

Asaf disliked the snarling, sour old oracle. He
irritated him as something upon which a man might
set his foot — something at once feeble and venom-
ous, squirming and stinging in the dust.

"What dost thou know of this boy, Kama Deva,
and his claim?"

"I? Nothing. He hath a goodly appearance, a
turn for prophecy and such-like tricks, and he hath
a plentiful lack of common sense. A youth so un-
encumbered with discretion might well have been
begotten by a king."

"Then thou hast no certain knowledge of the
family of Vickram, or of the truth of this birth
claim?"

"My friend, I have certain knowledge of nothing
save the duplicity of women, but in my house I em-
ploy an aged Hindu manservant who came thither
from the city of Vickram and who, if he speaketh
truth, was once a bodyservant of the old Rajah. He
hath more gossip than an old woman, and that is
saying much. He will number the hairs of the
Rajah's beard for thee if thou hast a desire to ques-
tion him. Even now he standeth without by the
head of my mule, fanning the beast with a fly-
whisk."

Mulraz had glanced up sideways at the big, dark
man. A malicious chuckle came from behind his

ASAF

unclean, ivory-colored beard. He paused a moment,
leaning on a tall, silver-headed stick, and then
shuffled away.

Asaf, alone, considered the problem which had
possessed him for the last half hour. He was stand-
ing with folded arms, half turned toward the cur-
tained doorway, his shoulder almost touching the
brocade.

"What feeling the woman hath for the boy I can't
divine," he muttered. . . . "He's dangerous. If
there be any further sign of treachery, or even a
suspicion of it, I'll cut him down and answer myself
to Akbar if there be aught said."

With a dry, crackling rustle the rich, stiff cur-
tain was put suddenly aside and a beautiful, unveiled
woman, brow-bound with a single great ruby, con-
fronted him.

It was the woman he had seen by the lotus tank in
Akbar's paradise — the woman who had sent the
message.

"Thou shalt not do this thing! I will tell Akbar
all." Her hand clenched convulsively on the edge
of the curtain.

Asaf, astonished, met her as he would have met
a sudden enemy facing him in a moment of un-
preparedness. His answer, even and cold as steel,
came quickly.

"By so doing thou wilt kill his love, for when

224 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

he learns that thou didst desert thy duty to become
my concubine he will turn thee into the naked
streets."

As he spoke the woman shuddered as though she
had been cut with a whip and her nostrils dilated.
But she had herself well in control.

"How shouldst thou understand? He is gener-
ous and will forgive when I disclose the truth to
him — how I was but a child, and then my king
was slain by thee, and I fell helpless in thy hands
— utterly at thy mercy! Thou canst not deny my
innocence — thou who didst rob me of it ! I was so
young . . . life was so sweet to me ... and when
the Brahmins came to take me and lead me to the
fire, I fled ... with thee."

Her voice sank to a whisper on the last words,
her eyes dropped from him, and her soul winced
under the white-hot shame that was upon her.

"Thou dost acknowledge, then, that the fault was
thine," said the man in the same cold, sneering voice.

"No! thou knowest that is a lie! Thou didst
plead with me — me, a child ! — speaking of love, ask-
ing that I, who had been a queen, should be thy
wife!"

A trace of callous amusement flickered on the
man's hard, sensual mouth.

"I must have spoken in jest. What did I want
with wives? This was my wife" — he laid a hand

ASAF 225

on his curved sword — "a woman would have blunted
the edge of it. Thou wert the spoil of war."

The deliberate cold brutality of the last sentence
was like an inhuman blow. For the moment Safa
seemed as if dazed by it. Her hand dropped away
from the curtain.

"The spoil of war. . . . ' She was as a creature
so desperately hurt that it feels only a numbness.

"The spoil of war!" Her voice rose, her eyes
dilated. "And so, when thou hadst done with me
thou didst cast me off like a garment which dis-
pleased thee!"

"If thou wilt have it so I cannot deny it," said
the man indifferently.

"Then I will use thee as thou hast used me — to
my own ends ! Thou shalt protect this boy."

She was roused now completely. Passionate hate ;
a dominant and unrelenting purpose possessed her.
She spoke with an absolute conviction. Asaf, un-
moved, insolent, watched her with a kind of grim
amusement.

"So thou dost command ?"

"Yes, I command."

"I understand," said the man slowly. "Akbar,
mad with passion, will yield thee anything thou
mayst ask, and thou wilt use his lust to crush me
if I raise a hand against thy — lover." Every word
and the manner of his saying it was a separate and

226 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

intentional insult. Safa clenched her hand until
the nails almost broke the skin, but she commanded
herself. She spoke in a low, tense voice:

"Thou art utterly wrong in all. . . . The boy
shall be protected, and by thee." ,

"By me? Think you I will protect a traitor —
that stubborn, snarling cub? Thou hast lost thy
wit."

"It shall be so, and by thine own will."

Her conviction was unshakable, and some omin-
ous veiled power that was almost a threat appeared
to lie behind it. Asaf looked at her now with a
glint of cruel curiosity. When he had spoken of
Kama Deva as her lover he knew that it was a
lie.

"What interest hast thou in Vickram's son, see-
ing that thou art not his mother?" he said slowly,

after a short silence.

>

Safa's lips trembled. An indescribable look came
upon her face.

"I love him even as a mother," she said very low,
her eyes averted.

The man was puzzled. He had seen such a look
in the eyes of one of his own women as she knelt
above a child of three months old.

"Thou wert an unblossomed bud of eleven years
when I snatched thee from the pyre, and Vickram's
wife only in name," he said curtly.

'ASAF 227

"Yes."

"Then as he is Vickram's son he does not come
of thy flesh. Thou canst not deny that."

Safa lifted her eyes to his. There was a subtle
defiance, a sudden recklessness in them. She seemed
to brace herself for an irrevocable event.

"He is not Vickram's son. I swear to that."

"Then thou liest. I saw the print of the tiger's
paw upon his breast — thou knowest that is the Vick-
ram's seal."

Unconsciously the woman's hand clutched again
at the curtain as if for some support. She was look-
ing directly at him with an extraordinary intensity.
She answered him deliberately.

"I placed it there. He has no right to it. The
shame is mine, but I was weak, and it was my hope
that in that manner I might deceive him concerning
his origin, for the father of this boy left me — a
child — the child that came to me as lightly as a
wandering wind."

Her eyes held his, pitiless, fraught with infinite
accusation ; her voice rose bitterly, meaningly.

"He was the spoil of war, even as I was. Dost
thou understand me? The spoil of war!"

For three or four moments she stood so, seeing
the blank, stunned bewilderment and shock of the
man who had betrayed her. Once he tried to speak,
but could not. Then the brocade curtain rustled

THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

stiffly as it was again put softly aside and he was
alone.

Asaf covered his eyes with his hand.

IV

The rattle of dry leaves was heard in the dense
tops of forty- foot bamboos ; the minute, secret bustle
of insect life about the crown of a rigidly erect
palm was barely audible. Upon the air came the
crash of brittle cane-brakes, broken through and
trodden down by struggling men and horses; the
screaming of maddened and wounded stallions; the
squeal of arrow-galled elephants ; the braying bellow
of war conches; the yell of the slaughter and the
shriek of the slaughtered — a scattered battle in an
open forest.

On the edge of a space of cleared ground stood a
slender boy, habited in blue velvet. A silver-crested
turban was on his head. His back was set against
an enormous trunk, gray and silent as stone. Be-
fore him lay a dead horse with tasselled trappings.
He clutched a broad dagger, rigid, watchful and
collected.

From somewhere near came the long-drawn shud-
dering groaning of a man, regular as the beat of a
clock. A riderless horse broke out across the open,

ASAF 229

stumbled, pitched headlong, and lay kicking help-
lessly. And now, with a babel of sounds, a con-
fused retreating mob of men were forced out from
the jungle on the farther side. They went back-
ward stubbornly, falling continually under the sa-
bers of the men who drove them. A scattered scurry
of mounted fighters broke through them and over
them, trampling the wounded and dying. The
force gave back suddenly, split into struggling
groups. A bay stallion, fierce as a panther, his
ebony-black mane and tail streaming, flashed at a
gallop across the empty ground behind the struggle.
The young man who sat him wore a spiked helmet
rimmed with carbuncles. "Rajputs! Rajputs!
Rally!" It was a hoarse, desperate cry. With the
skill of a born leader he checked them, steadied
them, gathered them, shaping them into a solid
wedge of men. It seemed for an instant as though
the tide of conflict were about to turn, then with a
terrible and indescribable roar an immense, gnarled,
gray bulk, crazy with pain, burst out of the forest
right upon them. The armored turret upon its
back was empty, save for a dead man hanging limply
over the front of it. Its great ears stood out like
fans, its trunk was lifted and the blood poured
from a hole in its flank where a goring tusk had
been driven. The monstrous thing raged across the
open like a mad devil, plunging with a mighty

230 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

blood-spattered crashing into the opposite jungle.
The rallied men had scattered like a cloud of dust
before the charge of the crazed elephant, and as
Adhiraj wrenched his horse aside the frantic stal-
lion reared, striking at the air. A troop of Mo-
hammedan horsemen swooped in the elephant's
wake, trampling and spearing, sweeping the space
as clean as a broom sweeps a floor, and even as the
young Rajput leader got command of his bay Arab
he was alone. For a second or two the curbed horse
danced from foot to foot, quivering like a hound,
while the young man looked sharply to the right and
to the left. Everywhere men sprawled among the
coarse grass clumps; here and there an arm was
raised and dropped again.

Before him were gathered the Mohammedans,
three or four hundred of them. The late afternoon
sun, ambushed behind the towering bamboos, laid
long shadows across the open. The hesitancy of the
solitary horse and rider was only a matter of a few
moments. With an abrupt gesture the young man
flung up his naked saber, straightening in the sad-
dle ; the stallion sprang into a gallop with the arrowy
forward leap of a stag, heading like a low-flung
javelin straight for the center of the three hundred
massed horsemen. His ears were flattened, his
short, keen muzzle was thrust forward, his full eye
was bloodshot. Almost before the mounted Mo-

ASAF 231

hammedans had time to re-settle their lances Adhi-
raj was among them. There ensued a tossing tur-
moil of roaring horses, thrusting spear heads, and
the unerring rise and fall of a single curved blade.
It seemed quite a long while before the riderless
bay stallion broke out of the circling confusion and
cantered aimlessly away, with loose-swinging bridle.
At the farther end of the clearing it stopped, look-
ing back with a vast questioning wistfulness.

The boy who was standing by the flank of the
giant treetrunk had not moved.

Now faint, fierce cries with a note of victory in
them rose on the farther limits of the scattered
forest. They were answered by others far and near.
The sun had suddenly withdrawn, leaving a wide,
yellow-tinted west, and the white garments of the
dead, lying in the clearing, looked bleak and stark,
though the sunset was warm and glowing. The
Mohammedans, dismounting, began to pillage the
corpses. A big, black-bearded man, who was
mounted on a tall, chestnut charger, rode out into
the clearing. He wore a six-pointed emerald star
spangling his turban.

"Stop that looting!" he shouted, in a deep, au-
thoritative voice. "Mount and scour the forest.
Let none of the dogs slink off. There will be a
pyramid of traitors' heads on the city wall to-night !"

When he was alone, save for the dead, Asaf dis-

232 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

mounted, leading his horse through the tall tufts of
grass. He was seeking for the body of Adhiraj,
who lay nearer to him than he guessed, for the
mounted soldiers had not known who it was that
had galloped into the midst of them. As he skirted
the edge of the clearing he noticed a dead mare
lying at the foot of a great-girthed treetrunk. His
own horse snorted, stopping short, and instantly
some one sprang out of the jungle shadow and
stood before him.

It was a boy in a rich Durbar dress — a boy with
an unsheathed dagger. The big, bearded man took
a step backward.

"Thou!"

"I — son of Vickram, who was murdered by thy
hand! Draw thy sword — draw before I stab
thee!"

He half-crouched like a maddened animal, quiver-
ing upon the very verge of attack.

A curious troubled look came upon the handsome,
callous face of the man.

"No — I cannot fight with thee. Let me pass."
He spoke abruptly — strangely.

"Then I proclaim thee a coward!" The boy's
voice rose in furious contempt. He took a quick
step forward and struck Asaf in the face with his
clenched left hand.

"Now wilt thou fight with me?" The heavy

ASAF 233

saber, which had been whipped from its steel sheath
with the instant deadliness gained in many wars,
was driven deliberately back into the scabbard. He
had taken the blow like a statue of rooted rock. He
bore now the set look of a mask.

"Thou shalt not tempt me," he said in a muffled
voice.

"Thou self-confessed coward! Thou shalt die
like a dog!" The boy's right arm went up. Asaf
spoke sharply, rapidly.

"Hold thy hand. Thou dost not know what thou
wouldst do. I am thy "

"Thou art my father's murderer!" Again the
dagger flashed up.

A spasm of some obscure feeling convulsed the
man's face. Again he threw out a tense, arresting
hand.

"Boy, know then that I am thy "

The broad-bladed knife flashed downward, tak-
ing him in the throat, and he fell straight back as a
tree falls, a gush of bloody foam choking the word
that was almost in his mouth. He lay as he fell,
his limbs and fingers twitching slightly; the strong
life going out of him swiftly and silently. The
chestnut horse, which had edged away from them,
was grazing casually and went further into the shel-
ter of the jungle.

Kama Deva stood over the man he had killed.

234 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

His soul exulted. The glow of a great achievement
uplifted him. The thought of flight, of concealment
had not even entered the threshold of his mind. He
folded his arms, and the knowledge that he was now
indeed worthy of the race of his father was like
musk in his nostrils. No living thing moved in
the open space, and the golden color in the west
faded into a ghastly paleness.

A great white elephant, moving with the meas-
ured, undulating motion that appeared as deliberate
as the passage of a heavy milch cow, devoured the
distance astonishingly. It bore housings of crimson
velvet, and the deep gold fringes almost swept the
grass tufts. Solid golden anklets, bearing three
rows of bells, were riveted upon its forelegs; its
shortened tusks were bound with gold, and the ex-
quisite ivory howdah, with its pagoda-shaped roof
and rod-like columns, was curtained with shimmer-
ing silk. A white-clad mahout squatted forward on
the great neck.

A man and a woman sat side by side beneath the
frail ivory dome. Safa, leaning back among the
cushions, watched the swaying of the yellow silk
curtains that bellied in the sunset wind. The close
odor of attar of roses permeated the interior of the
howdah. Every little while she glanced sideways
at the man beside her. His personality dominated

ASAF

her as always, inflaming her toward him even while
she feared him as she had feared no other living be-
ing. Akbar himself sat rather rigidly, looking di-
rectly ahead, save when he turned his eyes upon her
for a brief moment, and though Safa would not
meet them she knew the smouldering heat and un-
shakable purpose of the look. She was rent in-
wardly between yielding and denial. They had not
spoken for a long time.

An occasional faint cry or shout was the only
other sound now. They had come from among
trees into an open place, and Safa, putting aside one
of the little curtains, saw dead men lying singly and
in threes and fours. A vulture flapped heavily away,
disturbed by the elephant. They were passing up
one side of the clearing within easy distance of the
fringing jungle. Presently Safa, still looking down
from the howdah, saw someone standing at the edge
of the forest beside the bodies of a horse and a
man. An inexplicable terror seized her. In the
half light it was difficult to see clearly anything at
a distance. She leaned further out, gazing, while
the elephant swayed forward like a moving hill.
. . . The figure was Kama Deva, standing, watch-
ing them with folded arms, and the dead man was
Asaf — she could see the black beard and the emerald
star on his white turban.

With a shuddering effort Safa held back the cry

236 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

that would have broken from her. She felt at once
horror, relief, and a sickening fear for the boy.
She still gazed down, utterly unable to decide what
she should do. The man beside her stirred abruptly
and at the same moment ordered the mahout to
halt. Safa's fear caught her by the throat; she
could not speak. Akbar, bending forward, called
to the captain of the mounted escort that rode with
them and the Amir drew his horse alongside the
elephant.

"Which way did Asaf go — knowest thou ?"

A wave of infinite relief swept over the listening
woman ; her wit caught at the chance that his ques-
tion suggested. She laid a quick hand on the arm
of the Lord of Life and Death.

"I see him ! There — there " She was point-
ing toward the far end of the clearing. "He rode a
chestnut horse, did he not? He is passing deeper
into the jungle." Her hand tightened unconsciously
on Akbar's arm.

"I — I wish to dismount here, my lord. This is
the place of the battle, is it not?"

He answered her, crushing her hand a moment
in one of his. At his order the elephant, at a sharp
command from the mahout, sank ponderously upon
its knees. A portable flight of steps was brought
and Akbar, descending first, stood at the foot of it
to assist Safa to the ground. As he touched her

ASAF 237

arm, steadying her, she pointed again, crying in a
clear, unshaken voice:

"There is Asaf! There! Canst thou not see?"
Akbar turned to the mounted Amir.

"Send some of thy men yonder and bid them
summon Asaf to me."

When three troopers had sprung away at a gal-
lop the Lord of Life and Death, lowering his voice,
spoke with the dismounted Amir, while the risen
elephant, towering above them, twinkled an astute,
small, gem-like eye that was almost hidden by the
gold fringe of its velvet head-covering.

This was the slight, the fragile chance for which
Safa had lied desperately. She had besought Akbar
to send soldiers to seek a dead man who lay in the
long grass not twenty yards away. She must go
to the boy — now; she must overcome the defiant
madness that tempted death and send him into the
safety of the forest — before those troopers galloped
back.

It was twilight still in the open, but in the shadow
of the jungle it was already night. Safa, coming
swiftly and softly to the edge of the deep shadow,
saw the body of a tall man lying at full length
and a stark bearded face with open eyes. On the
other side of the body stood her son, unmoving,
with folded arms. She had stopped abruptly, for
the murdered man lay between them.

238 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

"What hast thou done?" She spoke almost in a
whisper. A sick horror possessed her.

Kama Deva looked at her. The square set of
his jaw was hard as flint. His whole attitude sug-
gested a defiant, savage joy.

"I have fulfilled a vow!"

He spoke recklessly in a high voice — so high that
Safa caught her breath in terror. She was los-
ing control of herself. The dead man unnerved
her.

"Dost thou know whom thou hast killed?" she
asked unsteadily, her voice rising unconsciously.

"My father's murderer !" The words came short
and savage like the snap of a wolf.

Something seemed to break — to give way — in the
woman's overwrought consciousness. She gave a
little choked, hysterical laugh.

"Thy father's murderer! Thou hast killed him

who was thy father " A cold hand clutched

her heart ; in that moment she seemed to hang upon
the utter brink of an unthinkable abyss. "Thy
father's murderer." The last words came in a
gasp. She half expected the dead man at her feet
to stir and speak.

"He was my enemy. It was my right." The
boy, absorbed with the glutting of his hate, had not
heard the strange pregnant break in her strained
voice. Neither of them noted the sudden, crude

ASAF 239

flare of a dozen torches, blazing in a high-held clus-
ter on the nearer side of the stationary elephant.
The reddish, throbbing torch light seemed to snatch
down a premature night upon the vague twilight
space, and the dark jungle walls became instantly
as impenetrable as solid ebony. Safa's white figure
showed plainly against this blackness.

Kama Deva's straight black brows contracted
suddenly. That other wild vow, made while the
knife hung quivering above his neck, flashed across
his mind. He was pledged to kill this woman also
— this woman who had betrayed the cause of the
Rajputs to save his life. If he held his hand now
she might go unpunished, for she had become one
of the Mohammedan's women and would be
guarded. He did not wish to kill her; the knife
became heavy in his hand at the thought of it, but
she deserved death. The pause between his last
words and this decision was very short. Safa was
looking down at the dead man, whose eyes were
half open. The nearness of Akbar and the special
urgency of every moment had melted from the con-
sciousness of her shaken soul. Kama Deva, looking
only at her, did not see the broad-shouldered, square-
bearded man who was coming toward them alone
from the group about the elephant. The boy's hand
tightened nervously upon the dagger hilt ; a strained,
painful look came upon his face. The thing was

240 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

hateful to him, but he had sworn to do it — and she
was guilty.

He struck without the slightest sound, and very
swiftly, but some deep instinct raised Safa's eyes in
time. With a sharp, involuntary cry of fear she
caught his wrist with a quickness as instant as his
own. She knew she could only hold him so a mo-
ment, for there was death in his eyes, but in that
desperate moment a man's clenched fist sent the boy
staggering backward and she was gripped by the
arm and drawn aside. Then — almost on the instant
as it seemed to her — there was a half-circle of sol-
diers with naked swords about them and the leap-
ing, smoky glare of the torches dazzled her eyes.
Kama Deva stood a dozen feet away, showing no
emotion and blinking slightly at the light, the
stained knife still in his clutch. There was no need
for any there to look a second time at the man with
the bloody throat and mouth. Akbar, now at the
center of the circle, close to the body, flung up' a
hand that shook with the fury that was in him.

"Thou hast killed Asaf! Infamous, vile, cursed
murderer ! Seize him !"

Instantly the boy was in the savage grip of half
a dozen soldiers. He never moved a muscle. A
slight foam showed on the crisp beard of the Lord
of Life and Death; the veins upon his forehead stood
out like cords.

ASAF 24.1

"Wait — wait," he said in a hoarse voice. "I can-
not think of torture great enough to punish this
skulking whelp!" He turned to the Amir. "Give
him as a den companion to Nadir Shah, the man-
eater! No, let him die of thirst in *an iron cage
above the river! No, no, fetter him and throw
him before a bull elephant!"

He wheeled on Safa, speaking thickly under the
stress of his fury.

"Canst thou suggest a fitter torture? He would
have murdered thee, who hath twice saved his life
— the misbegotten son of an assassin!"

The woman looked at him in a hopeless, strang-
ling agony, the pain of which was almost beyond the
uttermost limit of her endurance.

"My lord, spare him. . . . I — I beseech thee to
spare him. ..." she said in a choked voice.

The furious man stared at her a moment uncom-
prehendingly ; then he spoke violently.

"He would have killed thee, and thou dost ask
me to spare him? It is the weakness of a woman.
Thou art overwrought."

He wheeled again to the Amir.

"Torture him — now! Bind his hands over the
flame of a fire-basket till the fat melts. Let me hear
his screams — they will soothe my soul."

Immediately those who heard leaped to instant
obedience. A coil of green hide-thongs was tossed

THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

into the circle and a soldier came running with a
flaring fire-basket. Kama Deva's face was set like
a stone.

Safa's world was reeling now and the earth shud-
dered beneath her. She felt as though her heart was
to be shattered into a thousand fragments under the
hammer of a blind giant. She saw only the set, de-
fiant face of the boy — the beautiful boy she had
borne — as through a blinding mist, and the torches
had become blurred, lurid stars. He must not suf-
fer— he must not die, her child — her son!

She came into the midst of the circle, her lips dry,
the beating of her heart dizzying her. Twice she
tried to speak, gasping before the words came to her.

"A moment — give me a moment! I must have
breath to speak — breath — I'm choking "

Her hands went out toward the boy uncertainly.
A thick, red haze encompassed her, in which were
dull, yellow sparks, very far away. At a great dis-
tance a man's voice said harshly:

"She is distracted by the sight of him. Take him
hence."

The haze was thicker than ever, but the woman
understood. Her last appeal broke from her in a
strange, agonizing, breathless cry.

"Not till you have heard me speak! If he dies
it will kill me, too! Spare my son — my son!"

And instantly the red haze was smitten into a

ASAF 243

vast, black void as Safa swayed and fell, lying with
face upturned between the man and the boy, who
stared at each other across the body of the fallen
woman.

There was a dumb pause. Kama Deva was mute
under the shock of the revelation. His eyes dropped
from Akbar's to the face of the fainting woman
who lay between them. He seemed stunned beyond
the power of words or even thought.

The Lord of Life and Death made a slight sign
and the soldiers who held the boy drew away from
him. He looked up, realized this, and, turning
abruptly, went from them unmolested, slipping like
a stricken spirit into the midnight of the jungle.

PART VI

THE SUTTEE

I

SAFA, without opening her eyes, became con-
scious of herself and also, in a vague, blurred
manner, of the thing that had happened, as
some one waking from a sleep realizes the throb
and ache of a grievous hurt without any exact mem-
ory of the circumstances under which it was given.
A terrible, inarticulate sense of desolation descended
upon her. It was as though she were utterly alone
in a dead, midnight world, abandoned like a leper
in a place of tombs at the edge of a desert.

The wave of bleak, keen misery that swept over
her quickened her half-awakened consciousness to a
sudden sharpened realization of outer things. . . .
She was in the arms of a man who knelt on one
knee supporting her, and her head lay against his
breast. Even as she regained consciousness his lips
came upon hers. Her soft mouth responded invol-
untarily to the passionate pressure, yielding wholly
to him in a long, hot, close, hungry kiss.

245

246 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

In that supreme all-yielding moment a shivering
ecstasy swept over the woman, lifting her into a
flood of pure, passionate joy that was beyond all
thought. She knew that she loved this man with
every fiber of her being, and the secret thirst that
had been unsated within her all her life drank in
the long, clinging kiss and could not seem to drink
enough. In those moments, as she lay in his arms,
his lips pressed hard upon hers, the world appeared
filled with the greatness of full-blown roses. Aban-
doned utterly to her love and his, she tasted the
most perfect, poignant and wonderful joy that is
permitted to a woman, and was content.

Across this exquisite stir and tumult of her senses
shot a keen, arrowy pang, bitter as death, while,
faint and ravished, she lay upon his breast. She
had forgotten her son — the son who had tried to
kill her, and whom they would have tortured. She
had forgotten all things in a love which, if she
should once yield to its ultimate demand, would fet-
ter her body and soul to this strong-willed man,
even weakening, if such a thing were possible, her
mother love, or perhaps supplanting it by a new pas-
sion for a child of his that she might bear to him.
. . . Her whole soul trembled with ecstasy at the
mere fleeting thought of it. Oh God! a child of
hers begotten by the man she loved. . . . Then the
knife-like pang stabbed her again, and she shud-

THE SUTTEE 247

dered under it. How could she betray this other
child — himself the fruit of a betrayal — who had
such need of her? A burning wave of mother- feel-
ing surged up in her, scorchingly reproachful. Her
whole nature was riven. It was as though fire
struggled with snow — the love of the woman with
the love of the mother — and the pain of it turned
her faint and sick. . . .

From the moment when Safa aroused under Ak-
bar's kiss to the moment when the thought of her
son pierced her soul her passionate delight, agoniz-
ing her, was of the briefest, as men measure time,
though the woman lived through a hundred years
of pain in those last few seconds.

The long kiss was ended at last and the man
raised his head slowly, with a deep indrawn breath,
as of thirst satisfied. Safa stirred slightly against
his breast for the first time and then her eyes
opened. She knew he would think that she had
been unconscious, or nearly so, until now. She
saw that the night had come, and that the men and
the torches had gone, leaving them alone.

She stirred again, sighing this time, and the man
who held her saw that she knew him. He did not
know that she had yielded consciously to his lips,
tasting an intoxication of the senses even as he had
tasted it.

"I have released thy son, Safa — for thy sake

348 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

only, Desire of my soul and body ! But for thy sake
I would give the world to chaos if the power were
in me to make thee love me. Never was a woman
loved as I love and desire thee! My blood thirsts
for thee; my flesh hungers for thee. Never have I
known such a hunger or such a thirst. My soul is
set in a waterless desert. Thou art wine, fruit and
the bloom of flowers. . . . Safa, wilt thou not say
thou lovest me?"

The woman in his arms quivered a response to
every passionate word. The desire to cry suddenly
"I love thee!" and to yield her lips to him again
burnt within her like a subtle fire. But the thought
of the boy was with her, torturing her. She an-
swered him presently in a low voice that shook
tremulously :

"Akbar, have — have pity upon me. I suffer be-
cause of my son."

The man's arms about her tightened, straining her
to him. He broke out savagely :

"Oh God! What power can crush this mother's
love in thee? I will move the very heavens — I will
exile the sun to night, banish the moon to day, and
break every natural law to rid thy soul of this
cursed thing!"

Before she answered him Safa, with his aid, arose
slowly to her feet. She was pale as ivory and trem-

THE SUTTEE. 249

bled a little, leaning against his shoulder, while he
held her hands, embracing her.

Away to the left were gathered a ruddy cluster
of steadily-burning torches, blurred by a night mist
that lay upon the open like a face-cloth upon the
countenance of the dead. Overhead shone myriads of
minute, silver stars. When Safa spoke it was with a
sadness infinite as the night that encompassed them.

"Akbar, hast thou not been told — hast thou not
learned that no power in earth or heaven can sway
the love of a mother?"

The man drew her suddenly to him, holding her
with all his strength. Standing so he was taller by
almost a head than she, who could scarcely draw
breath in the pressure of his arms as he crushed
her against his breast.

"I'll melt this feeling in thee as fire melts ice!
Thou art a mother, but thou art a woman first, and
thou shalt desire the passion that drives me to thee
as I desire thee! Thou wert made for the love of
a man — the Creator hath set his seal upon thee!
He hath formed thee to satisfy the thirst that is
roused by thee! Safa, I will give thee all my days
— give me thy nights!"

A pregnant silence followed. The man had
spoken at last, demanding everything, and the
woman, who passionately loved him — her head

thrown back, her eyes half closed, knew only that
the joy of this asking melted her soul like gold in
a furnace, and that when she answered him she
could not, if she would, deny him. . . .

A human sound, the blended roar of many voices,
hoarse and angry as the snarl of a wild beast, came
to them across the level night mist and new scat-
tered torches appeared, flitting like fireflies. They
gathered in a fiery cluster about the group by the
elephant, and after a moment or two short, savage
shouts broke out like the yelps of a pack on a blood
trail. Then flaring torches, breaking from the clus-
ter, streamed out in lengthening line, coming
through the weltering mist toward the man and
woman who stood embraced, knee deep in the dew-
drenched grass.

Safa had not yet answered the man who held her.
She was faint from weakness, mental agony and
the overpowering shock of joy, but now, seeing the
torches, she freed herself from him, looking up at
him half questioningly at first, and then stood apart
alone. The blurred, scattered lights were close upon
them now.

An old, crooked man, hunched up on a white
mule, appeared suddenly out of the mist. It was
Mulraz, and at the tail of the mule came a mixed
mob of men with a dozen torches, stringing out
almost into a single file. Their hard, savage breath-

THE SUTTEE 251

ing and the swishing rustle of the wet jungle grass
seemed the only sounds in the night. Mulraz' high-
pitched voice broke out almost in a scream just as
the mule came abreast of the watching man and
woman :

"I have shown ye that I have proofs, my brothers.
The word of a bodyservant of the dead Rajah hath
been given. He saith that this Kama Deva is no
son of Vickram! Ye have heard from others that
this impostor — this whelp of some bazaar walker —
hath murdered Asaf, the trusted servant of the Peer-
less One! 'Tis a young viper! A poison thorn in
the flesh of the Great One! A crazy jackal's cub
that hath bitten treacherously and skulked into the
jungle! Hunt him out, my brothers, and leave a
feast for the crows!"

He raised a quivering arm and shook it as the
mule's slim, twinkling legs carried him nimbly for-
ward. The boy had always roused in him a peculiar
acid irritation, and he had entertained a certain re-
spect for Asaf, who had been in all things a rigid
Mohammedan and had never tasted wine. A hoarse
shout arose.

"Kill him! Kill the murderer! Kill the impos-
tor!"

The mob, tasting the crude primal joy of a sav-
age blood lust, blundered after him through the
mist. The men's faces, seen fitfully as they streamed

252 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

past, had a dreadful eager, hungry look, like the
look of a dog scenting meat, and they held bared
swords, daggers and hunting knives.

Safa had been mentally stunned for the instant.
The old man on the mule, the torches, the confused
following mob of hard-breathing men break-
ing abruptly out upon them from the soft night
fog, left her utterly bewildered. Then, all in
a moment, she woke to the full meaning of it all.
A flash of blinding fear passed before her soul.
She heard her own raised voice, high and des-
perate.

"Oh no, no! Stop and hear me! You are mis-
taken— I swear it!"

The rearmost figures, knives in hand, were hur-
rying by. It seemed as though their ears were
stopped with wax. They looked neither to the right
nor to the left. It was like a bizarre nightmare in
which one is afflicted at once with horror and im-
potence. Now the last had gone past her, not turn-
ing his head to look, and the foremost were plung-
ing into the jungle. The night seemed as blank
and void as a hollow globe of ebony now that the
torches were gone. Safa turned blindly to the man
beside her, holding out her hands. Her voice al-
most failed her.

"They would not listen to me. . . . Akbar . . .
help me. . . . Save my son. Save him, Akbar, and

THE SUTTEE 253

I will give thee thy answer — I will tell thee all that
is in my heart. . . . Save my son. . . . '

He took her hands and, drawing her to him,
placed them about his neck, while she trembled from
head to foot.

"Thou dost love me, then?"

There was a tense, hungry triumph in the whis-
pered question. The whole nature of the man was
merged in one desire that left space for nothing
else. But in the woman, hitherto dominated almost
wholly by her answering passion for him, the tor-
tured mother-feeling had risen again, submerging all
things else.

"Oh, do not ask me now! My soul is sick with
fear. Only thou canst save my son! Go— go, Ak-
bar! And when thou returnst to me thou shalt
know the truth!"

"Then I will go instantly — and return to claim
thee in flesh and spirit — mine !"

He kissed her lips again, briefly, exultantly — she
unresisting, and then released her.

Then several events took place which Safa saw
and comprehended as a person partially under the
influence of some deadening drug might see and
comprehend. The torch-bearing soldiers were about
them again and Akbar spoke with the Amir — of
her, it seemed, or perhaps of other matters. They
led forward a black Arabian stallion, well-built and

254 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

exquisitely proportioned, with golden bit and shovel
stirrups and gilded hoofs. Akbar sprang into the
high saddle, controlling the splendid creature, all fire
and fret, as a firm man rules a child. A sudden
great and poignant pride in him stabbed the heart
of the woman who loved him. The stallion sprang
away into the night at a furious gallop, half a dozen
mounted troopers following, and a curiously breath-
less stillness succeeded the sounds of galloping hoof-
beats.

The soldiers were gathered in a group a dozen
yards away or more. They did not watch the
woman, but spoke among themselves in low voices.
All around lay the stark dead, invested with the
peculiar horror that belongs to that which is unseen.
The misty open space, under an almost starless sky,
was like one great death chamber. Safa remem-
bered the long, stiff thing with half open eyes that
had once been Asaf. Where had they taken it?
. . . Away at the farther end of the clearing ap-
peared two or three torches. They drifted hither
and thither for a little while in a seemingly aimless
fashion, and then came together, remaining so while
one might count twenty. A single faint cry arose.
,The torches moved again and presently were gone
even as they had come.

An unspeakable desolation descended for the sec-
ond time upon the soul of Safa. Her broken life

THE SUTTEE 255

and hopes lay about her feet like the fallen dead.
She had lived to hear her son curse her ; to see the
man who had fathered him die under the knife of
the boy he had begotten ; to hear them cry that this
boy was no son of Vickram, but a bastard, and
guilty of death. A deadened sensation that made
her feel strangely numb and sick came over her. A
craving like that which drives a dying animal to
darkness and loneliness pressed upon her. It be-
came unbearable. All her dull agony was concen-
trated in that one desire. She went a few steps
toward the dark screen of trees, moving like a
shadow, and looked back swiftly. There were no
eyes upon her. The dewy grass brushed her knees.
She went forward again, reached the brink of the
close, utter blackness and faded into the forest.

II

As the sun sank behind the deer forest it grew
very dim in the tiny temple cell. As before, two
women sat there, one very old, one very young.
Neither spoke, and the silence thickened about them
as standing water thickens. Outside in the sur-
rounding wild places there was no silence, but the
many sounds did not penetrate to them.

Dil-Khusha, never stirring a finger, crouched

256 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

among the red cushions, rigid as a delicate plaster
figure, white and still. Her terrible, strained, dry-
eyed look never varied. She seemed always listen-
ing. The old hermit woman was drawn up into a
small shapeless heap. Silence and stillness had be-
come the deeply ingrained habit of her life.

The defaced image of the stone god in his shal-
low niche was imperceptibly blotted out. A subtle,
unmistakable glow of sunset widened through the
wilderness, and even in that inmost darkened grotto
there came the certain knowledge that the long day
had gone down to the subdued splendor of its death-
bed. They had been waiting a long, long while.

There was a loud rustling and crackling of jungle
growths through which something seemed to force
its way; then the heavy, grass-deadened tread of
some large creature was audible and the low door-
way was unexpectedly darkened. Dil-Khusha sprang
quivering to her feet. It was as though a crouching
statuette had been smitten suddenly into life. She
was in the doorway on the instant — standing there
with one hand clutching the stone doorpost.

An Arabian stallion had halted at the threshold.
The short, fiery muzzle drooped. There was fresh
blood on the reeking flanks and blood on the shoul-
ders. But the saddle was empty. The horse, breath-
ing distressfully, raised its beautiful head and looked
piteously at the girl. Dil-Khusha, with a sharp,

THE SUTTEE *57

broken sob, sank on her knees in the doorway and
covered her face with her hands. She swayed so
a moment and then fell face downward on the
floor of the cell, sobbing brokenly.

The slow minutes passed. The girl upon the floor
sobbed bitterly, weeping without hope and without
comfort. The sound of her weeping was the only
sound to break the stillness. After a time the old
woman stirred. She crept over to the girl and
touched her shaking shoulder.

"My child, how dost thou know that he is dead ?"
Her voice was scarcely more than a dry whisper,
but the still air carried it to the ears of the weeping
girl.

The answer came smothered and broken — almost
strangled.

"His — his horse. ... It is at the door. ... It

— would not have come away . . . unless he

Oh, why did they not take my life at the same mo-
ment! He is my life — and my life is dead! Oh
gods — oh gods!" An inarticulate agony seized and
choked her and she could say no more.

Presently the barren old woman spoke again.
"He is dead, perhaps — thy husband, but thou hast
been a wife and hast tasted the honey which is de-
nied to some. . . . Thou hast known the fullness
of joy, which is love fulfilled, for to those who live
in the blindness of the cities or in the blindness of

258 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

the villages that is the greatest of all joys. And
now, in a little while, thou wilt follow him through
the fire, which thou wilt scarcely feel because of the
greatness of thy love. When thou hast passed
through it he will take thee by the hand and thou
wilt see and understand that the life thou hast left
is only a semblance; a shadow and a reflection of
the things that are. . . . Do not weep any more,
my child. Death is only a passing from that which
seems to that which is. ... "

Gradually the sobbing sank into silence. The girl
lay motionless, face downward, as she had been
from the first. The old woman rose and, like a
crooked ghost, stole out of the shrine. Presently
she crept back carrying a little earthen lamp filled
with oil in which burned a single feeble flame.

She set it upon the floor at the inner end of the
shrine, shielding the girl from the faint light of it,
and crouched down beside it, watching the tiny,
floating tongue of yellow flame. Outside it had
grown quite dark.

Dil-Khusha raised herself a little. Her heavy,
loosened hair hung about her face, veiling it. She
got slowly upon her knees, crouched back upon her-
self and so remained. In the dusk of the hermit
shrine she seemed a very small and silken thing,
too slight and childish for the heavy golden anklets
that she wore, but her heart was breaking. A calm-

THE SUTTEE 259

ness that was far more terrible than her weeping had
come upon her. At the first, sobbing hopelessly,
she had lain at the bottom of a hideous abyss of
blind, unbearable despair, pierced agonizingly by
numberless little recollections of his words, his ca-
resses, his love; even of small intimate incidents
that had occurred on this day or that. . . . The old
hermit woman's shadowy voice had reached her,
even through the fierce torture of this grief, and
after a time she understood what she had heard.
Now she was aware of only one vast, dull, irrepar-
able ache, which she felt poignantly in the hollow
void that had been her heart. ... If he could only
have been brought to her — if she could only have
held him and whispered to him at the last, telling
him all that she seemed never to have told him fully
— the inmost naked force and fire of her loving, the
things which a secret virginal reserve had always
held in leash, even against her desire. He would
never know them now . . . until the fire was
passed.

She winced under a long, violent shudder. It
was impossible to realize what might be beyond.
The Brahmins said this and that, but how did they
know? No one knew, neither she nor they. Her
husband was dead and she was about to die. She
must. If there was no fire she would kill herself
with poison or a knife, for she could not endure to

260 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

live. But this was an ending of it all, like the put-
ting out of a lamp. An inexorable, inexpressible
bleakness widened about her like a limitless lead-
colored plain, and she sat as it were in the midst of
this desolation without tears and without hope.
The mirage of the waste had builded a fugitive
oasis of trees and bushes, but the only things that
had reality were the long, motionless ridges of
leaden sand. She knew that now, yet faced the
hideous fiery agony that was before her with the
dumb acceptance that was her birthright.

Time passed. The girl whose heart was dead sat
as before. The aged woman, whose heart had never
known full life, crouched above the flame of the
lamp. Darkness encompassed them, and a greater
darkness possessed the soul of the girl. The tongue
of fire floating in the shallow lamp-saucer bloomed
like a little faintly yellow flower that lightens a dark
place. It seemed also a tiny symbol of the living
human hope that is stronger at the last than life
and death.

There was a sound outside. Some one stood at
the threshold looking in — a gray-bearded man with
a bare sword. Presently a deep voice said huskily:
"Art thou there, gracious lady? It is thy servant,
Shitab Rai who speaks. . . . '

"I am here, Shitab Rai."

The voice was toneless.

THE SUTTEE 261

"Gracious lady, this morning we were an army,
to-night we are nothing. ... It is the will of God.
... I go now to seek for my master and your lord.
I have with me one who saw him charge a body of
three hundred horse, alone, and who knoweth the
place. If God favors us I will bring him hither.
I salute thee, gracious lady."

"I have heard thee, Shitab Rai," the child-wife
spoke gravely, Stirling her grief stoically.

The figure at the doorway melted again into the
night. Another blank time of waiting descended
upon the hermit shrine. A fierce, dreading, hunger-
ing impatience began to dawn in the girl. She put
back her hair with both hands and turned her face
to the blind dark outside. ... If only she could
have kissed him once before he went from her.
. . . Great tears came to her eyes — the first for a
long while, and they seemed to ease the dry, hollow
aching. They crept slowly down her face while she
looked steadily out into the night.

A red pulsing star blinked suddenly. But stars
do not stray through the thick jungle like the wan-
dering ghosts of women who die in childbirth. It
disappeared. Then a brief, empty pause, and then
the open front of the shrine was smitten by a ruddy,
unsteady light that grew. Dil-Khusha rose. Her
face was colorless as ivory ; its contour was strangely
sharpened as in one who has undergone famine,

262 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

and her eyes were wide and fixed. Two armed men
who carried fire-baskets came first. They planted
one on either side of the low doorway and stood
back. Then came the old Rajput, Shitab Rai, walk-
ing slowly, his head lowered. At the threshold he
salaamed profoundly and then also withdrew a little.
Four soldiers bearing a litter made of lances and
covered with a leopard skin followed him, treading
very cautiously. Upon the litter lay a young man
in a shirt of chain mail, his head bound with a
blood-stained cloth. The girl in the doorway did
not speak or move. They laid the litter down at
her feet and went aside. A long minute passed.
The face of the man upon the litter twitched slightly ;
the eyelids quivered and half lifted.

There was a loud cry, sharp and unnatural —
"He is not dead!"

"He lives, gracious lady" — it was the old Rajput
who spoke — "but it is no more than the last flicker
of the flame before it is extinguished. I feared
that the spirit would pass from him before we could
bear him hither."

Dil-Khusha did not hear him. Her knees gave
way and she sank down suddenly where she had
stood, shaken with hysterical weeping. Some one
crept over to her and touched her hair, seeking per-
haps to quiet her, but the girl was overwrought
beyond all self-control. Dimly she heard move-

THE SUTTEE 263

ments about her and a hoarse lowered voice; then
the soothing hand, light and tremulous, was with-
drawn from her hair and there was a faint retreat-
ing sound.

Nothing moved or spoke. After a little pause
the crouching girl lifted her face.

The tiny earthen lamp had been set on the ledge
before the stone image. The two fire baskets flared
at the entrance and the place was lit with leaping
firelight. The narrow litter covered with the leop-
ard skin had been carried bodily into the shrine and
laid upon the floor. The eyes of the man upon it
were closed. They were alone.

A frantic fear seized her, infinitely more terrible
because of the sudden blinding hope that had
stricken her to her knees. She crept to the head of
the litter and knelt there, her whole being one pierc-
ing anguish.

This was her lover — her husband — this man with
the blood-soaked bandage about his brows and the
strange, still, sunken look. As he lay now so he had
lain beside her through the nights that were gone.
. . . The man gave a slight sigh and again his
eyes half opened.

Instantly the tearless agony became a pitiful and
trembling joy. The girl leaned over him until her
lips almost touched his.

"My lord!"

264 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

All her soul was in the shaken whisper. The
man's eyes opened fully. His lips moved. "Heart's
Delight. . . . ' It was scarcely louder than the
drawing of a breath, but she understood.

"Oh my lord — my love!" She leant still lower
and kissed him. His lips were cold, but they very
faintly answered the touch of hers. His eyes closed
again. The girl watched him, scarcely breathing.
Had the flickering flame sunk into darkness even
as they kissed?

A slight shudder passed over the dying man. His
eyes opened and there was light and life in them.
For a few moments he lay looking up at her — a
look of full consciousness; then he spoke weakly.

"It is good to be with thee again, Heart's De-
light. . . . There must have been three hundred
of them . . . and I was alone ... I rallied them
. . . but the wounded elephant broke our ranks.
. . . Thy father hath scattered us. . . . '

Instinctively the girl knew that it was only the
last upleap of the expiring flame. She knelt beside
him, agonizing under a love that transfixed her like
a two-edged knife. Suddenly she sank right down
and laid her face against his.

"I cannot let thee go from me! . . . We have
been happy such a short while . . . and I had
prayed that I might bear thee a child. . . . ' Her
sobbing shook her whole slight body.

THE SUTTEE 265

Again the man spoke weakly: "Hush, Heart's
Delight. I cannot move. . . . Canst thou raise me
a little?"

She understood what it was that he desired, and
with much effort lifted him until his wounded head
rested upon her girl's breast. Presently he said:
"Thou wilt follow me ... soon . . . Heart's De-
light?"

"I will be with thee before the morning, my hus-
band."

"So it is only ... a little parting . . . until the
coming of the daystar . . . my wife."

A wonderful poignant joy was dawning in the
soul of the girl. She bent still lower above the
man whose head lay upon her breast. His face had
taken a gray, drawn look.

"Heart's Delight ... it is the end ... " he
whispered. "Let me touch thy lips."

And even as she kissed him the flickering flame
was extinguished.

For many moments Dil-Khusha stayed unmoving,
holding the dead man in her arms. She looked
straight before her through the doorway where
the twin fire baskets glared into the blank, black
heart of the jungle. She was looking from a death
chamber across a fiery gateway into an unknow-
able darkness where a bridegroom waited for his
bride. The flaming gateway was between, but it

266 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

was the portal of a bridal chamber where death
would enter nevermore.

There was no sorrow in the girl's face; only a
great unearthly eagerness that transfigured her. She
kissed the dead man tenderly several times and laid
him back upon the litter. Then she rose, put back
the hair from her eyes and knotted it upon her neck
with light, deft, steady hands. Then, going
quickly to the doorway, she stood there and called
aloud :

"Shitab Rai." The old Rajput was before her
almost on the instant as it seemed, and with him
there came others.

Dil-Khusha, standing in the doorway, full in the
smoky fire-glare, looked as it were through them
and beyond them into the night. She spoke in a
high, unshaken voice.

"My lord is dead. Take him and prepare all
things for the burning. Do not delay, for I have
promised to meet my lord before the morning."

The little lamp, burning peacefully before the
nameless, man-made, man-forgotten image, very
faintly illumined the one-celled hermit shrine im-
bedded in the midnight forest. A girl of sixteen
stood in the midst of the narrow place and an aged
woman knelt at her feet where a small, heavy, teak-
wood box, bound with iron, gaped open.

THE SUTTEE 267

The girl, short, slight and beautifully rounded —
a bud poised upon the exquisite verge of flowering
rather than a blown blossom — was swathed in semi-
opaque white silk with broad gilt borders. Her
hair, smoothed evenly above her brows, was braided
tightly at the back of her head, and a golden flower
was fastened in it. A headband of turquoises three
inches broad was bound upon her forehead; she
wore a collar of diamonds and a great gold crescent,
from which depended a tassel of seed pearls, hung in
each of her small ears. Her slim, pretty arms were
loaded from wrist to elbow with armlets of silver,
gold and jade; her high anklets enclosed the small
ankles like golden sheaths. Rings set with large
rubies, sapphires and catseyes crowded upon all
her fingers and upon the toes of her little naked
feet. She was adorned as only a bride is adorned,
and her expectancy was surely the expectancy of a
bride.

Dil-Khusha quivered from head to foot. Her
eyes were bright, almost with the brilliancy of fever,
and her hands restless. The aged, barren woman
at her feet peered into the depths of the open box,
feeling with claw-like fingers. After a minute she
withdrew her hands from the search.

"There are no more, my child. Thou hast them
all."

"That is well, mother. Is there not a dash of

268 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

orange-flower water in the box ? It is the marriage
perfume. I will have no other."

Ill

Then said Bisesa: I am near to death
And have the wisdom of the grave for gift,
To bear me on the path my feet must tread . . .
"The Sacrifice of Er-Heb" — Kipling.

When Safa, driven by her tortured soul, crossed
the indefinite threshold of the forest she came into
a blind midnight chamber thronged with unseen
growth. Leaves touched her like the tips of light
fingers. With hands outstretched she went further
into the labyrinth, going always forward. She
began to see a little, distinguishing trees from one
another in the darkness. No other life seemed vis-
ible. The human tempest that had been driven back
and forth through the wild places had scared all the
swift, timid things from their sanctuary, and the
lesser creatures were hidden and silent.

Safa stood still. The close jungle night seemed
to enfold her in a formless embrace, soft as masses
of black wool. She felt like a child gathered into
the lap of a merciful, dark mother, with the
mother's thick, black veil cast about her and the
great unseen breasts, rich with peace. She seemed

THE SUTTEE 269

to draw balm from those shadowy breasts even as
a child draws life. A desire for sound sleep came
upon her. How good to sleep there in the lap of
the Dark Mother, with the straight and twisted tree
trunks thronging about one and the many little flut-
tering leaves. . . . Safa raised her arms above her
head with a deep, soft sigh. She was unutterably
weary, and she had come into a place of peace.

From somewhere in the darkness, close to the
ground and near, came a low, gasping moan. Then
the soothing silence dropped back like the fall of a
curtain.

A violent shudder seized the woman who had
thought that she was alone. Terror overcame her
suddenly. All the hunted misery of her soul, which
had fallen from her, clutched at her again like the
clawing hand of a ghoul. For a little while her
spirit had stood like the spirit of a child in a sweet
security, fenced with loneliness and with the sweet
flowers of peace about her. Now she was in the
maze of a midnight jungle, with all her griefs press-
ing upon her, and back in the forest there was a
wounded man who moaned.

A strong hysterical dread lest he should moan
again laid hold of her and she went quickly for-
ward, feeling her way with nervous hands. A little
further on she stumbled over a body which did not
moan, and her soul sickened with the horror of an

270 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

evil dream. . . . Fallen tree trunks raised massive,
rounded barriers; there were entangling nets of
close leaf-meshes and treacherous places of loose,
broken rocks. It was like a blind nightmare through
which a terrified, grief-hunted creature groped and
struggled, and after a long, long time there was a
sudden rift in the evil dream, and in the rift burned
a red flame of fire.

The flame vibrated like a feverish pulse, and the
rift was a gap betwixt two distorted tree trunks
covered with knots like misshapen warts. The
woman, who had come in terror through the jungle,
was flooded with an unspeakable relief. It was as
when a sick person, striving to escape from some
delirious horror of the night, becomes suddenly
aware of the light of a little oil lamp as a friend
enters the dark room. Passing between the twisted,
warty trunks, she moved swiftly toward the flame.

The nature of the thick jungle about her changed
abruptly. Underfoot spread bare, level ground,
pebbly and ringed with tree roots. Slim, straight
tree shafts were everywhere, spaced almost as regu-
larly as a forest of thin columns in a cavernous
temple, and high overhead a denseness of long
leaves, all of one sort, resembled an unbroken temple
roof. It was a banyan grove — the grove that is one
multi-shafted tree, indestructible, longer-lived than
nations and religions, and sacred throughout India.

THE SUTTEE 271

By the central trunk, massive as a stone pillar, stood
a small, domed shrine, dedicated to Kali. Before
this shrine burnt the fire that had drawn a soul
from the pit of fear, summoning it with a red, beck-
oning ringer. It lit up brightly the front of Kali's
little shrine, and the weakening vibrations of light
widened outward through the empty tunnels of the
grove.

The woman, who had come out of the forest, had
almost reached the inner circle of slender shafts
that ringed the central trunk when she stopped
again. There were men sitting, stooping and stand-
!ing about the fire. They were naked, and their
long hair hung below their waists. The leanness
of them was like the leanness of famine ; they wore
beards matted like the jungle grass, and a thin,
crinkled, hairy growth covered their breasts. It
might have been a gathering of semi-human crea-
tures mimicking man as the apes mimic. Safa, look-
ing fearfully from the outer dimness, saw what they
were doing. One of them stood motionless, full in
the firelight, with both arms raised above his head.
It was some moments before she realized that he
could not lower them if he would. After long years
of rigidity the shrunken muscles had petrified. An-
other, raking out glowing embers from the fire-heap,
trod backward and forward over them, and another
scored his breast deliberately with a jagged flint

272 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

knife, drawing blood. Absolute silence possessed
the banyan grove. The leaping firelight illuminated
the crude image of painted terra cotta within the
shrine. The four-armed goddess was black as a
coal, with three staring, scarlet, almond-shaped eyes
and a protruding scarlet tongue. A horrible thought
laid hand on Safa. In her desolation she had sought
the abiding inner spirit of the forest, thinking of it
as a mighty, merciful Dark Mother with peace upon
her ample knees, and here, in the holy heart of the
wilderness, she was face to face with Kali, who is
the Black Mother — Kali, who rejoices in terrible
slaughter and in the running of rivers of blood;
whose feet are set upon the headless dead, and
whose necklace is made up of bleeding heads. Thin
lines of staring red were drawn upon the naked
breast of the fakir who had scored himself with a
flint knife. Safa remembered the dead man she
had stumbled over in the dark and the faint moan-
ing that had come from the deep grass. The forest
was strewn with death and sprinkled with the blood
of men, and in the inmost shrine of it dwelt a hide-
ous Dark Mother with protruding tongue.

The woman, standing just beyond the brightness
of the firelight, glided away like a tall, white ghost,
threading the dimness of the strange, sacred grove
at whose center a flame pulsed like the heart-beats
of a human body. Again the curious numbness had

THE SUTTEE 273

come upon Safa. She chose her way carefully,
going slowly now, without acute fear and without
any hope. Small bats flitted hither and thither,
and occasionally a night bird cried out shrilly. The
jungle seemed of infinite extent, though in reality
the distance she had come was not very great. An
immense physical weariness dragged at her, weaken-
ing her knees. She moved in a daze, knowing that
she must go forward, and suffering in her body
rather than in her mind.

An hour passed. A strong light shone through
the chinks of the gathered trees and a murmurous
human sound mingled with the light like a mingling
of silver with molten gold. A woman, whose thin,
clinging, silken drapery was wet with dew and
whose naked feet were bleeding, came very slowly
toward the light. Half fearfully she stood in the
stiff grass, looking between the stems of a screen of
young bamboos. After a minute or two she parted
the slender stalks and passed out into the glare of
half a hundred torches.

It was a large, green, oval space, sparsely grassed,
on the eastward fringe of the deer forest. A tiny
village of a hundred souls or less, straggled on the
outskirts of the jungle not fifty yards away, and all
the villagers who were not halt, blind or sick were
gathered in the clearing — men, women and children.
At the center of the space was an oblong stack of

274 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

hewn logs, built up evenly like a great altar pre-
pared for a burnt sacrifice. Upon the flat summit
of the pile was laid a strip of white brocade, worked
with raised peacocks, and a resplendent image of
the sun in heavy gold cord and golden thread and
sprinkled with pearls and small vari-colored gems.
There were two or three pure-robed Brahmins with
scarlet slippers, small scarlet turbans and sacred
marks upon their foreheads, and a dozen Rajput
soldiers, who held torches, stood like men of wood,
four on each side of the high logpile. More than
half of these were freshly wounded, and from be-
neath a stained bandage bound about the head of
one of them the blood oozed in large, slow, bright
drops that shone like glistening rubies in the flare
of the torches. The crowd of village folk, changing
places continually among themselves, kept well back
from the strange altar of built-up logs. Every now
and then a miserable, mangy village dog would ven-
ture tentatively out into the open, be seized with
acute embarrassment at its own isolation and retire
hurriedly, with vague apprehension in its yellow
eye. Overhead the night sky appeared dead and
black as an overarching vault of coal by contrast
with the strong and steady torchlight.

Safa, coming out between the parted bamboos,
went two or three steps forward and paused. On
her right was a plump woman whose red cotton

THE SUTTEE 275

drapery was closely spotted with violent orange; on
her left was a thin child of about thirteen, with a
sensitive, sharpened face of infinite pathos, wrapped
in a large black and yellow veil, and with a heavy
baby upon her hip. Both of these, half turning,
regarded her as though the jungle had yielded up
a divinity. They saw a tall woman wrapped in a
white silk robe' with a silver hem, while a pendant
ruby rested upon her forehead in the place of the
crimson marriage mark. A subtle atmosphere of
attar of rose pervaded her, touching their senses like
delicate, pink-tinged ringers dipped in a syrup of
flowers. Her skin was finely soft and fair, and her
fingernails had the fine polish of jasper. She had
come upon them as suddenly and as silently as a
full moon coming from behind a cloud.

They did not see the stain of blood in the dust
where she had set her feet, or the shadows, dark
almost as the shadows of death, that were beneath
her beautiful eyes. For a full minute the girl and
the woman stared, and then Safa glanced first at
one and then at the other and they looked quickly
away from her. Half a dozen more on either side
observed her tall presence, staring openly or fur-
tively; but the broad red and orange matron
screened her partially, and the rest had eyes only
for the Brahmins and the pile of logs.

For the first few moments Safa was bewildered.

276 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

What were all these people doing here in the night ?
She saw fat, sleepy babies sitting astride their
mother's hips, some raising a peevish, tired whine.
Other children clung silently to their skirts. Then
across the plump shoulder of the bulky woman, who
breathed heavily, she saw the stack of hewn wood
and the Brahmins.

A violent shock almost bereft her of conscious-
ness. The delirious fear and unreality that had be-
set her in the jungle came again. Seventeen years
before she had fled guiltily from such a funeral
pyre — had fled from her ordained and sacred fate
— and by so doing had incurred the curse of heaven
and earth and of her only son. What was it that
had brought her through the midnight forest to this
pyre prepared surely for a suttee? She felt as
though she had Heen drawn, unknowingly, yet by
chains of iron, to this altar of her unfulfilled but
irrevocable destiny. Helplessness, fear and a ter-
rible sense of guilt overwhelmed her. She almost
expected the crowd to open and the Brahmins to
advance toward her. These other women with the
copper anklets and the brass nose rings — these
mothers with the babies and the young children —
she had no right even to be among them. She was
a ghost who had escaped sinfully from the holy
house of death, even as her feet were set upon the
silver threshold, and her place was not among the

THE SUTTEE 277

honest, simple folk who walked in the wholesome
ways of life. The shame of her sin encompassed
her like a vesture of fire. . . .

Gradually the first acuteness of the shock passed
from her. None here knew her or knew the secret
which had been buried for seventeen years. She
had mingled by chance with a simple crowd gath-
ered to see the suttee of some person of consequence.
That was all. They must regard her presence as
very strange. A sudden thought of turning back
into the jungle came to her, but even as it entered
her mind she knew that it was impossible. She
could not face the dark places again, alone, and
with unshod feet. A poignant fascination in which
was mingled shame, curiosity and a kind of shrink-
ing anticipatory horror, kept her where she was.
She felt like one who had committed a detested
crime and who was now led back to the place where
it had been committed, and who would presently
view the dead victim. Yet it was impossible for
her to go away.

A small boy, wearing only a loin-cloth, came
dodging eagerly between the little groups of village
folk and ran against the red and orange matron as
one in hot haste might collide with a bulky ant hill.
The stout woman gripped him instantly by the
skinny arm and held him while he wriggled like an
eel.

278 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

"Thou here, miserable one! Wert thou not to
stay with thy grandmother, son of the devil?"

"Why should I stay? She is old and deaf and
cares only to sleep. I am young and a man, and
a suttee is better than sweet cakes. Let go my arm,
oh my mother!"

He wriggled himself free.

"Didst thou hear that, Sarasvati? Wait till thy
boy is his age. Then thou wilt slap thy own face
as I do for having borne and suckled such a grace-
less little good-for-nothing!"

The thin girl wrapped in black and yellow smiled
a faint, tired smile and resettled the stolid baby on
her hip.

"Be it a marriage, a burning or a cockfight he is
always in the crowd, learning shameful ways. . . .
Where is thy man?"

"Yonder." The girl nodded indifferently toward
a burly, bearded fellow in a dirty turban. Between
them the small boy who loved suttees better than
sweet cakes squatted upright on his haunches like a
dog. The red and orange matron crossed her hands
upon her high stomach and her big bosom rose and
fell like the rhythmic heaving of a placid sea.

The heavy throb of a hand-beaten drum struck
across the murmur of voices and the murmuring
ceased. The drum throbbed on and on like the
muffled, measured pulsing of a heart. The crowd

THE SUTTEE 279

was very still, but there was a slight movement
among the Brahmins. The tall woman in white by
the bamboos looked instantly in the direction of
the sound with eyes that were terrified and expec-
tant. More Rajput soldiers carrying torches en-
tered the clearing. They joined those who were
already there and a steadfast ring of fire encircled
the oblong pile of logs. The small boy who squat-
ted between the stout woman and the girl rose and
stood on tip-toe. The dry throb of the single drum
seemed louder, more insistent. An elderly man with
strong, stooped shoulders and drops of jade in his
ears entered the circle — Shitab Rai. Then came
four Rajputs bearing a string bed such as the jungle
village used, and upon the narrow bed lay the body
of a young and very handsome man. He was clad
in white and gold, richly as a bridegroom, with a
twist of golden silk about his brows. A bare sword
was laid upon the body and the diamond hilt rested
upon the dead man's breast. He seemed as though
he were asleep.

The stout woman leaned across until her mouth
was at the girl's ear: "That bed was taken from
the house of my cousin," she confided in a hoarse
whisper. The girl with the baby did not seem to
hear. She was staring with enthralled, big, wistful
eyes at the dead man. "How beautiful he is," she
whispered.

280 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

Not far from them the fellow with the dirty tur-
ban stared likewise, after the manner of a bewil-
dered buffalo in whom contemplation rouses only
the vaguest speculative faculty.

The diamond sword hilt blazed like a constella-
tion in which the clustered, milky stars flash and
tremble with fugitive ruby, emerald and topaz fires.
The woman in white was looking also at him who
lay on the string bed. What was he? The face
was not wholly strange. . . . Ah! She remem-
bered now. She was in a lofty, crowded place,
pale as ivory. The air was close and quivered
to the dull menace of approaching thunder.
A wooden image fell and a splendid young man,
stepping from the pedestal, took a girl into his
arms and there was the flash of a lifted sword.
. . . She knew him at last — Rajah Adhiraj.
He had gone down under the hoofs of Akbar's
horsemen, and this pyre was his. Was it also
for ...

The bearers had set down the bed and now the
head Brahmin came slowly forward. He was a
tall, spare man slightly stooping, with straight, white
brows and a white moustache. A strange, ab-
stracted, yet far-seeing, quality dwelt in his sunken
eyes, and a certain serene dignity, unruffled as the
surface of a sacred pond, invested him. He came to
the head of the bier, looked down almost like a gen-

THE SUTTEE 281

tie father upon the dead man, and then spoke to
the people.

"This, my brothers, is what men call a grievous
sending from the gods. This young man, a king,
having dominion over cities and treasures and over
the lives of countless men and beasts, was also a
lover, and in the pride of his strength he put forth
his hand to pluck a perfect spray of orange bloom
that blossomed in the secret garden of one mightier
than himself, and even as he plucked it, and touched
the sweetness of the blossoms with his lips, the light
of his life was extinguished."

The speaker paused and then went on, raising"
his voice: "Yet why should we deplore this thing
and why should there be any voice of lamentation
when death, the only priest who hath power to
celebrate an eternal marriage, will lead again the
bride unto her bridegroom?"

He turned to the bearers of the bier : "Place him
who was your master upon the sacred pyre which
hath been prepared for him."

In an awed hush old Shitab Rai and the four
Rajput soldiers raised reverently the body of the
young man and laid him upon the jeweled strip of
white brocade that was spread upon the summit Of
the pyre. The Brahmins, pouring liquid perfume
from a dozen porcelain vases, drenched the logs with
sweetness.

282 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

Oily drops, distilled from Damascus roses, dripped
from the pile of freshly-cut wood and upon the
thirsty dust below. Adhiraj, son of Umra Singh,
son of Ram Rai, the diamond hilt of his curved
sword upon his breast, slept his last sleep upon his
last hard bed in the midst of a jungle clearing.

Louder and faster throbbed the hand-beaten drum
and now came the hollow thudding of many others
in a muffled accompaniment. A faint, confused
sound, like the sound of shaken bunches of little
bells, mingled with the thumping of the tom-toms.
A vague rippling movement of expectation ran
around the circle of villagers. The stout woman in
red and orange pushed nearer to the front. Safa
did not move. All her painfully fascinated soul was
in her eyes.

More torch-bearing Rajputs entered the circle
and stood aside. A wide gap in their ranks showed
like the mouth of a black tunnel opening passage-
wise into the mystery of the forest. Quickly and
more quickly fell the dull, thudding blows upon the
hidden drums, working up to a kind of climax.
Lights appeared in the tunnel, approaching ; and be-
tween the torch lights, like the radiant dawn star
that comes in the dark pause between the brilliance
of the night and the brilliance of the day, came a
young girl marvelously jeweled.

Out of the jungle wilderness into the crude glare

THE SUTTEE 283

of blazing wood she came sedately and paused just
within the circle, her little, soft, bare, ringed feet
set upon the sterile ground, hard almost as stone.
She was very lovely, and as fabulously adorned as
a miracle-working idol in a famous shrine. Against
her pure, smooth cheeks, just touched with a sparkle
of gold dust, hung a pair of great golden crescents
that stirred as she walked, and from each a long
seed-pearl tassel fell almost to her breasts. Her
arms, covered with bracelets, hung straight at her
sides. Her face was a wrapt, expectant mask, and
it had almost the look of a young hermit saint who
perceives beyond that which is seen, that which is
unseen, as through thick crystal. She did not seem
to be actually aware of those who were about her.
The feverish quivering and the fluttering of the
hands had gone. She was as calm as her mother's
mother had been when she stood upon the pyre of a
dead Rajput king, but her whole consciousness
seemed to have withdrawn itself and to be already
with the man who had died in her arms some hours
before. There was no child to link her with the life
she was leaving; she had lived only in the life of
the dead man as a lotus lily lives in the slow cur-
rent upon which it floats. She stood quite still, as
if waiting, without appearing to know that she was
waiting.

A subdued murmur of admiration arose, as when

284 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

the gemmed image of a goddess is revealed to the
worshippers.

Safa gazed in a kind of bewilderment that was
shot with acute horror. Was this the child whose
face, wet with tears, she has pressed against her
breast in the white Durbar Hall? This girl, un-
moving as a golden idol, seemed removed to an
infinite distance from her, and from all those who
were there. There was nothing of the child in her
still face.

The tom-toms throbbed and the unseen bunches
of little bells were shaken without a pause. The
tall Brahmin who had spoken to the people concern-
ing Adhiraj came gravely forward. He saluted the
motionless girl and then spoke to her :

"Oh Queen, it is our belief that in this sacred
hour the Great Ones bestow the gift of prescience
upon a pure and faithful wife. Is it thy will before
thou goest into the glory of the heaven of heavens
to disclose to any here the fate that is prepared for
them?"

There was a pause. The girl looked at him stead-
ily, but almost as though she looked through him
into luminous distances. She spoke clearly, but me-
chanically, in the manner of one whose thought is
wholly concentrated on other matters and who is
scarcely aware of the words that are spoken:

"Thou hast a long road yet before thee, and thou

THE SUTTEE 285

wilt walk ever in honor and piety. The love of
those about thee is like sunlight upon thy head, and
thy soul is pure as bleached linen."

The unexpected and unasked reply had almost
the effect of an oracle uttering a divine message.
An overpowering religious awe, blended with an
acute curiosity regarding further personal revela-
tions filled the listeners. The tall Brahmin salaamed
profoundly and retired a few steps, beaming with a
child-like pleasure.

After a hesitating pause a mother timidly pushed
her son, a boy of seven or eight, a little way into
the circle with a humble murmured request.

The girl looked at the child as she had looked at
the man and spoke immediately.

"Thou wilt live all thy days in the shadow of the
house where thou wast born. Thou wilt know
sickness, but not hunger, and in thy turn thou wilt
be the father of many and will live to see the chil-
dren of thy children."

The small boy stared blankly and his mother,
murmuring a blessing, drew him gently back into
the little crowd, her doe-like eyes soft with pleasure.

Others came forward, men and women, and the
be jeweled girl whose soul seemed to stand apart,
intent upon other matters, spoke to each. Those
standing immediately in front of Safa melted away
as the crowd shifted, and she also was drawn semi-

286 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

consciously a little nearer to the oracle. A man,
whose death by snake-bite within the year had been
predicted, shambled back to his friends, and Safa
found herself suddenly face to face with the girl
wife of Adhiraj.

Two tragic eyes, strangely abstracted, and yet
with a curious and indefinable hint of inner sight,
met hers, and instantly she was unable to look away.
She experienced an indescribable and wholly new
sensation. It was as though her soul stood naked
in the light of the torches and before all these folk.
The desperate need of concealing this nakedness of
spirit rose within her.

Then the girl spoke: "I see in thee a miracle.
Thou hast been cleansed from sin by sufferings
more terrible than fire, and thou art even now at
the doors of death and of release. Yet before thou
diest there is one thing set for thee to do; and that
thing is a crime, and yet it is no crime, for it is
to save a soul thou lovest."

The last words were spoken very slowly and with
peculiar emphasis, yet all the while the young, sweet,
almost childishly pitched voice was detached, slightly
monotonous, and wholly mechanical.

With the final word the girl's tragic eyes ceased
to hold hers and Safa, without knowing that she
did so, turned and went back a little distance. That
which had been said and the manner of its saying

THE SUTTEE 287

had entire possession of her. For the moment she
had become unconscious of the village people and
of the Brahmins and of the pyre and of what these
thfngs portended. She was in a strange tumult of
feeling, and her unsettled thought seethed like
heated milk. To her the truth of what she had
been told was beyond questioning, and she was
aware of a vague, anticipatory dread.

To save a soul thou lovest. . . . Yes, there was
indeed a soul whose life was her life and from
whom she had three times, with naked, bleeding
hands, turned death aside. But now he was surely
safe under the strong protection of him who was
the Lord of Life and Death, and yet

The tall Brahmin was speaking: "Divest thyself
now of all these jewels, which are the ornaments
of thy beauty, for thou earnest into life with neither
gold nor silver upon thee, and death waits like a
priest to wed thy spirit to the soul of thy husband."

He spoke like one who announces from the
threshold of a temple some matter which is at once
joyous, triumphant, and most deeply sacred.

Safa, recalled instantly to the place and circum-
stance in which she was, glanced from the fatherly,
round-shouldered Brahmin to Dil-Khusha, and then
at the pyre, and a sickening, shuddering pang
pierced her like a knife. But it was impossible for
her to avert her eyes. The people about her were

288 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

deathly quiet now, and the circle was clear of all
save Shitab Rai, the Brahmins and the little bride
of death who had spoken of the future in a monoto-
nous, childish voice.

The tom-toms thudded blatantly in the stillness,
the little bells were shaken, and there was the sub-
dued crackle of burning wood.

Dil-Khusha did not move. She resembled some
one in a kind of semi-trance. Only her breast rose
and fell as markedly and regularly as the bosom of
a sleeper. There was a pause and then an old, old
woman with tangled white hair, who was crooked
as the senile, crescent moon, crept into the clearing.

Wrapped in a coarse, white shroud, she shuffled
over to the girl, took her right hand and began trem-
ulously to draw off the jeweled rings. Almost in-
stantly Dil-Khusha seemed to waken. An indefin-
able subtle strangeness fell from her like a discarded
garment, leaving her a girl of sixteen years about to
meet her suttee. She said something quickly to
the aged woman, withdrew her hand and com-
menced hurriedly to free her arms from the in-
numerable bracelets. The shrunken, sexless crea-
ture in the cotton shroud crouched down to the
earth, fumbling with the girl's golden ankle-sheaths.

Dil-Khusha appeared possessed by a consuming
eagerness. She stripped off her ornaments as hastily
as a maiden about to enter a bath strewn with rose

THE SUTTEE 289

leaves on the morning of her marriage. Her small
hands fluttered like little birds. There was a faint
clinking sound as the bracelets fell one after an-
other. The anklets were unclasped, then the neck-
laces, the headband, the crescents, and the diamond
collar lay with them — an armful of preciousness
dropped in the dust before that ultimate, unlighted
doorway, whose door yields only to one key.

Dil-Khusha stood in the midst of the circle, bare-
footed and with untwisted hair. The gilt-bordered
silk that swathed her betrayed the young, round
beauty of her body and her face, the cheeks just
touched with gold dust, was lovely as a lily. She
was scented with the perfume of orange flowers,
like a virgin who is about to become a bride.

As she went from the little heap of discarded
jewels to the pyre the aged, un wedded woman,
cowering above the catseyes, the rubies and the star
sapphires, watched her with a vast, weary wistful-
ness. The door of her desire was about to open,
turning upon its sweetly sounding hinges, but she,
who held life as of less account than the useless,
vari-colored pebbles beneath her hands, for whose
sake men lied and stole and slaughtered, must stay
without upon the threshold stone. The pyre had
been so constructed that at one end there were
rough steps formed by the logs of which the heap
was built. Up these the girl went quickly, and

stood upon the summit at the feet of the dead man.

The thin wail of a young baby rose in the abso-
lute silence, and then immediately there came a deep
and inarticulate murmur from the gathered people
— an unanimous many-throated sigh of awe and of
admiration. And always the unwearied tom-toms
throbbed.

Dil-Khusha, standing upon the pyre, saw him
who had been her husband lying as if asleep. He
was clothed like a bridegroom — clothed as he had
been upon the day of her Bride's Choice, and the
white brocade that was spread beneath him had the
look of a bridal bed. An immeasurable love swept
over her. Her whole nature seemed straining
toward him like a creature that is consumed with
thirst and is held back by a single cord. She was
aware of nothing save the dead man, her irresist-
ible love and that she was about to go to him as
she had promised. This was indeed her bridal bed,
and her bridegroom waited. A joy that was in-
describable smote through her, and the world of the
senses was struck suddenly from beneath her feet,
leaving only the beloved face of a man she adored.

The girl who had stood for a long moment mo-
tionless upon the pyre flung up her bare, young
arms.

"My love — I come to thee!"

It was a piercingly clear cry, and it was a cry

THE SUTTEE 891

of joy. And even as it was uttered Dil-Khusha
swayed forward, her knees relaxed and she fell
face downward upon the breast of the dead man.

Again the deep, wordless murmur came from the
crowd. Half a dozen lighted torches were thrust
simultaneously between the logs, already soaked
with inflammable oils and perfumes, and instantly
thin, licking flames shot up.

Above the tops of the eastward bamboos a pale
splendor shone, bright and cold as a large white
jewel. It was the herald of an approaching dawn.

IV

The long and sinister night, which had completely
enfolded the deer forest and the stark bodies of
men and horses, was gradually giving place to an
early dawn. The keen, sweet smell of the freshen-
ing day breeze swept through the forest, and the
dawn star blazed in the east like a silver lamp held
high above the rim of the world. The blackness of
the night receded before the white luster of the bril-
liant star, and the little dawn wind rustled faintly
in the bamboos, fanning into greater activity the
broad flames that shot upward from a burning pile
of wood.

The flaming heap of logs blazed in the center of

292 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

an empty clearing, lit up with a vivid, pulsing bright-
ness. Away at the farther end of the open place
an elderly, gray-bearded man with jade earrings
stood as if on guard. He looked steadily upon the
ground, his strong shoulders bowed and rounded as
though beneath a heavy burden. There was one
other in the deserted clearing. A woman in white,
drawn a little back from the beating glare of the
blaze into the shadow of the encircling jungle. And
she was still as a statue.

Safa never moved her eyes from the burning
pyre. It held her as the gaze of a snake holds a
bird. She loathed it, feared it, and was drawn by
it. The biting sense of self-reproach never left her,
and she thought of Dil-Khusha as of a miracle.
The young girl's spirit, pure and serene, had climbed
with shining feet the wavering red-golden stair of
fire, and was even now in the embrace of her hus-
band. And the woman who had turned from her
sacred duty to become, innocently, the concubine of
a dissolute Mohammedan captain, watched the con-
suming of the funeral pyre with unwilling eyes that
were ashamed and suffering.

The last of the villagers had gone reluctantly
some time ago. They must needs snatch a little
sleep before it was full day, for life and the tasks
of life are as running water that waits for no man,
and the children also were weary. The only sounds

THE SUTTEE 293

were the hollow upward roar of the fire, the crackle
of the burning wood and the shivering rustle of the
dawn wind in the bamboos.

And then, without a shadow of warning, a third
figure appeared in the clearing — a boy.

He started abruptly out of the jungle, close to
the woman in white, and staggered forward a few
steps, his face lifted. He was in rich velvet raiment,
but bareheaded, and he breathed like an exhausted
animal that has been driven hard. In the fierce
light of the aspiring flames his raised face, faultless
in its classic purity of type, was revealed piteously
drawn and strained, with dilated eyes, widened nos-
trils, and contracted brows. He quivered from head
to foot like a high-strung horse that has been ridden
without mercy.

After his first few blind steps forward he stopped
short, jerking his head over his shoulder with an
instinctive, hunted movement. Then, glancing about
him in a dazed, utterly bewildered fashion, without
seeming to know that he was speaking, he muttered
two or three almost incoherent sentences :

"I have escaped them. . . . They would have
killed me. ... It is a monstrous lie — it was coined
to madden me. ... I cannot die like a dog. ..."

He turned with a violent, nervous jerk, suddenly
aware of the woman and of her nearness. Safa,
her hand at her breast, was gazing at him in an

294 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

agony that appealed desperately and pitifully,
shrinking meanwhile as from an unexpected blow.
He knew her now as the mother he had most bit-
terly cursed, as well as the woman who had be-
trayed his hope, and yet

Kama Deva stared at her wildly for a moment,
and then a fierce hope and purpose flamed up in
his hunted eyes that were dark as onyx in the clear
pallor of his face. With a few steps he was close
beside her.

"Thou — my mother — tell me the truth! They
said I was no Vickram — but it is a lie ! Thou know-
est it is a lie — thou who didst bear me ! . . . Swear
to me that I am Vickram's son!"

There was a terrible insistence in the breathless
voice. The shadow of an unthinkable doubt which
he would not acknowledge even to himself was ag-
onizing him. A hint of sheer abject terror dwelt
furtively at the back of his dilated eyes.

But if one desperate question obsesses the boy,
another hungrier need dominated the woman and
would not be denied. He had not reproached her —
though he now knew her as his mother.

Safa put out her hand toward him tremulously,
as one craves to touch a holy thing, yet dares not,
awaiting some sign of supernatural consent.

"Canst thou not speak one simple loving word to

THE SUTTEE 295

me? . . . Let me but take thy hand. . . . Let me
but touch thee. . . . '

Her voice broke. Her eyes were brimmed with
tears. Her whole being seemed melted into a hum-
ble, piteous pleading that was like the pleading for
a little bread of one at once famished and unworthy.
But Kama Deva put aside the heart-broken, pitiful
request as a man bent upon some vital affair disre-
gards the wistful importunity of a dog.

"No — not yet."

There was a curt and careless impatience in the
voice. Then he cried stormily : "Canst thou not see
that this fiendish lie is unendurable? All my life I
have thought no other thought, hoped no other
hope, prayed no other prayer than for revenge on
Vickram's murderer. Swear that I am his son!"

It was a cry of utter, almost agonized, despera-
tion. The boy, urged forward by a hideous doubt,
was grappling with it wildly, delirously, upon the
very verge of an awful, unthinkable void which had
gaped suddenly beneath his feet. His world was
tottering like a statue upon a shaken pedestal.

Safa understood. The truth, now known to a
few, would in a day be blazoned in the ears of
many, and even perhaps the true paternity of the
son she had borne to be made known. All hope was
gone, and the inevitable revelation would be infi-

296 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

nitely bitterer than death . . . yes, than death . . .
than death. . . .

Her eyes were tearless now, and her lips did not
tremble. She looked steadily at the boy and spoke.

"Yes, I swear it!"

A great light of inexpressible relief swept in-
stantly across the young, strained face. The boy
seemed to straighten as he stood with all the old
superb, defiant pride. Again he was Kama Deva,
son of Vickram, King of the World.

The woman stretched out her hands that were
tremulous no longer. As the day breaks in a rap-
ture of flower-like radiance upon the gulfs of the
sorrowful dark, a wonderful glory of joy had
dawned in her face and in her eyes at last.

"My son!"

He came to her acquiescent, glowing with the
pride of race that was the very soul of him. Her
hungry arms were about him, drawing him against
the breast that years before had given him life for
a little while — drawing him close and closer. As
she held him to her her face was lifted and a pure
ecstasy transfigured it. The child who was flesh
of her flesh and bone of her bone was in her arms
at last.

The unsteady flame light beat upon the jungle
walls of the clearing. The hyacinth east was paler,
and the freshening dawn wind rustled more strongly

THE SUTTEE 297

in the bamboos. When Safa spoke her voice was
clear, low and vibrant as the golden strings of a
harp: "For this one moment I have lived a life-
time. . . . My precious jewel! . . . How much I,
thy mother, have suffered for thee thou wilt never
know. . . . '

She bent her head, and with infinite tenderness
touched his brow with her lips. When she again
raised her face there was a breathless strangeness
upon it. The eyes had darkened and the lips were
set together as in some irrevocable decision. The
face was devoid of grief or terror as is surely the
face of the angel Azrael, who is spoken of in the
creed of the Mohammed. And the gift of that an-
gel is often also a gift of great love.

As she held him, passive, against her breast, her
right hand stole to his side and very softly drew
something from a fringed velvet sheath.

"To save a soul thou lovest "

It was a strange, dry whisper. Her voice rose
in a sharp half cry: "And thus I save thee from
thyself!"

Her right hand went up. A narrow streak of
steel flashed momentarily in the firelight, and then
was plunged deep in the boy's back.

Kama Deva gave one deep,smothered groan. His
head fell suddenly back, his knees gave way, and
as the arms that were about him loosened involun-

298 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

tarily he fell sideways, rolled partly over, and lay
with his face turned to the sky.

The dawn star was waning. Semi-luminous rifts
widened low in the east, and the dawn wind, com-
ing on wide wings, scattered the flames of the burn-
ing logs this way and that and passed on. Safa
stood for two or three moments unmoving at the
feet of her dead son, her arms at her sides. Sud-
denly a wild horror dawned in her face. Her hand
went to her throat.

"Death. . . . Let me die. ... I must die. . . ."
It was a dry, toneless gasp. She stooped, putting
out her hand blindly toward the boy's body. But
the knife was sunk in his back and he lay face up-
ward.

As the woman withdrew her groping hand, turn-
ing again to the full firelight, a flash as of some
extraordinary perception appeared to visit her. Her
face lightened as a lamp lightens at a touch. She
had the look of one who perceives all in a moment,
some marvelous fitness or fulfilment, and is flooded
with an eager, vivid joy.

"The fire !— my fate ! ... My suttee !"

A quick, glad cry. Instantly she turned from the
dead boy to the flaring pyre. At the far end of the
clearing Shitab Rai stood with bowed head. He was
as one deaf and blind, thinking of a broken hope, a
riderless bay stallion, and of a city wherein there

THE SUTTEE 299

was no man-child at play in the empty house of the
Rajah.

The fresh logs of which the pyre was built burned
stubbornly, and those by which Dil-Khusha had
mounted to the summit were still intact. The steady
dawn wind, coming- out of the east, leveled the
flames before him, sweeping them westward as
waves of grass are swept.

As Safa came to the foot of the ascent up which
the girl had gone the blaze was blown steadily from
before her face as though the fire were being beaten
back by unseen hands and the path of her coming
prepared for her. The heat was fierce as the blast
of a furnace, and the log steps by which she must
climb to the altar of her ordained fate were smoul-
dering sullenly. With both hands pressed tightly
together against her breast, and with bright, fixed,
dilated eyes and rigid lines set in the curve of a
slight, strange smile she began quickly to ascend
the smouldering logs that glowed and crackled be-
neath her naked feet.

A jet-black, satin-skinned stallion, its sides torn
by the spur, broke recklessly out into the open and
was thrown instantly back upon its quivering
haunches by an iron hand. The man in the high,
gemmed saddle was aware of a sudden blaze of
tawny light, of a sheet of low-blown fire, and high
on the summit of a dark and glowing pile, dominat-

300 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

ing for a moment the flames that were driven from
about her feet by the morning wind, the tall figure
of a glorious woman, white as silver, with a great
oblong ruby between her brows.

Realizing nothing — comprehending nothing — he
knew her upon the instant, and the passionate cry
of his whole nature, too long denied, leapt to his
lips.

"Safa — my answer!"

She heard him. As she stood in the agonizing
gate of death with shriveling flames, blown like
grass about her feet, she saw the man beneath, the
hot breath of whose desire her soul had broken into
fierce, thirsty bloom, and he called to her from the
life which she had left, asking for an answering
love. . . .

In that brief instant a vivid vision flashed before
the woman upon the burning pyre. She saw her-
self the consort of this powerful and desirous man;
she saw a period of passionate joy and hot delight;
she saw the gradual waning of the full moon of
sensuous rapture; she saw the procession of the
stale and aching years when the passion of the flesh
has become a handful of embers upon a hearth that
has grown cold, and with a dazzling spiritual clear-
ness she knew she had chosen that which was best.

Her unquenchable love for him leapt upward like
a white flame upon an altar. Her arms, widely

THE SUTTEE 301

opened, went out toward him, and her voice came to
him, strong, clear and glad with the truth.

"Akbar, I love thee ! — I'll wait for thee Beyond!"

For one long moment she stood so, with her beau-
tiful bare arms extended as though she yearned to
take his head against her heart; then with a hollow
roar the fire swept up about her, shooting skyward,
and the pyre was a pillar of flame that wavered
torch-like in the morning wind.

Akbar had sprung from the saddle even as she
spoke his name, going blindly to her. As the long
flames shot roaring upward he fell back a step,
dazed utterly, smitten by the ardent heat, and in
that moment his foot struck the stark body of Kama
Deva. Involuntarily he turned, stooped, saw the
glazed, half-open eyes — the parted ashen lips — and
understood.

Without a sound the strong man who was hailed
as if in mockery as the Lord of Life and Death,
fell on his knees before a tall pile of fiercely blazing
wood and bowed himself even to the dust.

In the east the radiant dawn of a new day had
come.

It was midnight, and a full white moon stared
unsparingly down upon a stricken city. The sear-

302 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

ing, silver glare of a dead world poured its reflected
radiance upon a world held in a stupor of sleep, a
world the very pulse of whose manifold life was
pain, multifold, multiform, unutterable, inevitable.

Upon the death-cold bosom of this unpitying mid-
night was set a single slight, golden glitter, warm
as a hearth fire, but purer, steady and bright. It
proceeded from a ring of oil-fed flames encircling
an image of the god Siva, who sat in his oil-an-
ointed shrine garlanded with wilted marigolds.

The street before the little Hindu temple was
white with moonlight, and the front of the temple
was black with shadow. The grotesque, clustered,
sacred carvings with which its stone eaves were
overloaded were touched here and there with light
as though with the tips of silver fingers. The naked
knees and the hollow lap and the lax hands, rest-
ing palm-upward, of a man who sat at the edge
of the temple platform between the pillars, were
splashed also with the warmthless argent of the
night. Or was he the rigid effigy of a man, in-
human as the stone idol seated in his circle of lamps
at the extreme rear of his long, narrow, passage-
like shrine with open doors?

The figure at the edge of the temple platform
did not move. It had not moved for twenty days.
All through the hot, throbbing daylight hours the

THE SUTTEE 803

ceaseless worshippers had passed up and down the
temple steps, coming and going.

"He is holy," they had said to one another.
"Neither bread nor water hath passed his lips for
twenty days."

And the little children playing in the dust before
the temple whispered : "He is holy. His spirit has
flown away from him like a bird. It will come back
to him as our pigeons return to the dovecote."

Half in moonlight and half in darkness was the
still figure on the temple platform. It was seated
cross-legged, stiff as wood, with closed eyes. Save
for a loin-cloth, the man was naked, and there was
neither caste mark nor the dust of ashes upon him.

On every side the awe and silence of the night
and the chill of its inhuman tranquillity rested upon
the city like a gigantic outspread hand, heavy and
cold as marble. Beneath it grief lay wide-eyed and
fear slept fitfully. '

A single dark figure moved in the street before
the temple — a tall man, squarely built, shrouded in
gorgeous purple silk. The luster of a fabulous white
gem shimmered upon his white turban. He ad-
vanced slowly, walking in the heavy shadows of
the night. It was as though grief that could not
sleep had risen and was now approaching the shrine
of the god Siva.

304 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

Now the man who wandered at midnight in the
silent ways of a sleeping city had reached the steps
before the temple door and the shadow of the tem-
ple enfolded him. He paused, turning his face to
the feeble yellow radiance that came from the oil
lamp about the idol — the lifeless stone inhabitant of
the temple to whom, through all the ever-lengthen-
ing days and months and years men came continu-
ally to lay their grievous burdens. They bowed
worshipfully at the feet of the thing they had fash-
ioned with their own hands.

The wanderer slowly withdrew his gaze from
the enshrined image hung with ropes of marigolds
and turned, wearily as it seemed, from the door of
the shrine.

"Peace be with thee."

It was a strange, quiet voice, with a curious deep
note in it, and it carried a tranquillity that may not
be expressed in words.

The tall, broad man, shrouded in dark raiment,
stood motionless, regarding the speaker whom he
had not seen before. The bare, rigid figure, seated
cross-legged upon the temple platform had not
stirred, but the large, sunken eyes were open and
they were fixed strangely and luminously upon the
other. From the fallen face, lean as famine, yet
serene as the countenance of one who has passed
softly from sleep to death, looked out a marvelous

THE SUTTEE 305

and a superhuman peace, beautiful as the radiant
day dawning upon us after a night of terror.

"Thy soul is clothed in a sorrow greater than
anything thou hadst conceived," went on the strange
inward voice. "By day and by night thou dost
seek for that which may soothe thy sorrow. Even
here, at the threshold of Siva, dost thou seek for it.
Js it not so, my brother?"

The other man spoke now, heavily and huskily.
He had drawn nearer to the naked seated figure
whose lips alone moved.

"It is so. The light of my life is darkened ut-
terly and there is no other light. ... I have
cursed the day on which I was born. ... I would
terminate the life that is in me with my own hand.
Beyond this life I see only darkness and rottenness
and a forgetting of all things, which is more unen-
durable even than pain. ... If it were otherwise
would not the dead speak out of the darkness to
those who mourn for them, granting hope to the
desolate ?"

He had striven to speak evenly, and in a cold and
level voice, but the last words came in a shaken
cry begotten by a raw agony of spirit that could not
be held silent.

The figure at the edge of the temple platform
spoke again, gazing with luminous, unmoving eyes.

"Thou art blind, my brother. Thou art fettered

806 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

wholly to the world of sense, which is the world of
illusion, and that which is behind and beneath and
above hath slipped from thee as water slips from a
sieve. Thou art a man wise in many things, yet in
these matters thou resemblest a little child which
demands the moon as a plaything and does not
comprehend that which it asks. Open thine eyes
and look to the right and to the left. What seest
thou ? Grief and fear and doubt and wrong heaped
upon wrong until no man may put forth his hand
and part the cause which is just from the cause
which is unjust; and above all these things, and
mightier than all these things — yea, overshadowing
the whole earth as with wings of darkness, is pain,
whose arm no man born of woman may avert from
him, and whose hand is upon every living creature
from the least even to the greatest. And when thou
hast seen that it is even so thou seekest within thy-
self for some answer to this seeming riddle, and that
answer thou hast not found. My brother, I have
sought for that answer as many have sought before
me, and as many shall seek after me, and my seek-
ing has not been void."

The voice ceased and the silence of the night
pressed heavily upon them in the waiting pause.
The man who sought for peace and the man who
had found it were equally motionless. The strange
voice went on:

THE SUTTEE 307

"I am a Brahmin. For ten years I have inquired
after the hidden truth that lieth behind the things
of sense. I have overcome the impediment of my
flesh, and have liberated my spirit as you may liber-
ate a bird from its cage, and this, oh man, is the
truth as it hath been made plain to me. . . . The
down of a thistle, the seeds of the cotton plant, a
dead leaf dancing in the wind — of what account are
these? Yet I say unto thee that of even less ac-
count is the life of men and of the senses, save as it
beareth upon that which is to come. . . . This life
which thou livest even now it is but a little dream
poised for a breath betwixt the reality that came be-
fore and the reality that follows after, and He
that fashioned both the dream and the reality
holdeth it within the hollow of his hand. Thou art
afflicted in thy dream with the semblance of much
suffering. My brother, in the visions of thy sleep
art thou not likewise troubled, distracted often with
strange fears? But when morning has come, and
with unsealed eyes thou seest the gladness of the
light, and the rose tree flowering at the ivory win-
dow lattice, and hearest the low laughter of her
who is the beloved of thine heart, dost thou not
laugh within thyself at the terror of the dream
which hath departed? Even in like manner shall
it be with thee when this brief illusion is ended and
thine eyes have opened upon that which endureth.

808 THE SUTTEE OF SAFA

. . . Death, my brother, is but the cool and tender
hand which rouses thee as with a light touch from
thy troubled dreaming. It is the veiled handmaiden
who openeth softly the door of joy and of under-
standing. It is the threshold which divideth truth
from illusion, blindness from clear seeing, gladness
from pain. . . . '

Again the voice ceased. The luminous, unflinch-
ing eyes were brilliant, wonderful.

"How art thou sure that it is even as thou
sayest ?"

It was a question, low-voiced, hesitant, charged
with a troubled doubt.

The voice answered it immediately: "Oh man,
who art fettered to the flesh as with chains of iron,
how shouldst thou comprehend the flight hither and
thither of the seeking spirit which hath been liber-
ated by fast and vigil and by the long effort of the
instructed will? But that thou mayest know that
the word which I have revealed unto thee is the very
truth, thou shalt have a sign and a token. . . .
Twenty days ago I sent my spirit from out my
body to gather truth. It journeyed far, and in its
journeyings it met with one whom thou didst desire
beyond all other creatures, and for whom thy soul
is afflicted even now "

The hand of his questioner, which had rested
passively upon the breast-high temple platform,

THE SUTTEE 309

clenched until the bones of the knuckles almost
started through the skin.

"And she whom thou hast so loved and who hath
been denied unto thee spoke with my spirit, and I
learned of a promise that she had given, pledging
her to await thee in the after-life, for the greatness
of her love for thee was equal to thine."

"Thou hast spoken truth! That promise alone
hath stood betwixt me and the despair which hath
nearly strangled my soul! Man! does her love live
still? Is there reunion? Speak! in the name of
God, who hath created thee !"

"My brother, love dieth not, even as life dieth
not. The love of this woman, fragrant as musk,
pure as the holy Himalayas, and beautiful as the
dawn of day, awaiteth thee according to the promise
which was made to thee as she stood in the embrace
of death. If thou hadst indeed possessed her ac-
cording to the manner of the flesh it would not have
been so, my brother, for thou art a man who hath
steeped thy being in the gratification of the senses,
drugging thy better part, and satisfaction would
have brought satiety, and after that distaste, and
the ashes of love would have become an exceeding*
bitterness in the mouth of thy spirit. But it hath
not been so, and when this life of the five senses,
which is naught but a little dream held in the hol-
lowed hands of the Creator, hath fled away like the

310 THE SUTTEE OF SAP A

swift shadows of the night, and that which is true
and actual and immutable hath come to pass, thou
shalt be taken to the pure bosom of her, as a loving
bridegroom to the bosom of his virgin bride. Thou
shalt see and know and understand that the pains
and partings of this short life-dream are as in-
tangible and fugitive and bodiless as the phan-
tasms of one who hath smoked the seed of the white
poppy, and that thou hast indeed passed from sleep
to waking. For the life of the five senses is a
brief and a blind thing, and of no account, while
death is a door of sandalwood that turneth upon
silver hinges, and that which lieth beyond it is vaster
than any man may comprehend. . . . '

In the long silence that followed, the moonlight
and the shadows of the moonlight; the light in the
shrine of Siva, the silhouette on the facade of the
carven temple and the whole immensity of the mys-
terious Indian night seemed to be set in a fixed and
breathless expectancy— waiting.

"Art thou content, my brother ?"

And he answered slowly:

"I am content."

END

J. DEPARTURE IN FICTION WRITING, 7JV-
STRUCTION AND ENTERTAINMENT COMBINED

IRubra

H IRomance of Hncfent

BY
ARTHUR J. WESTERMAYR

Author of " Potoer of Innocence "

A Fascinating:, Thrilling, and Educational Romance of
Ancient India

HLTHOUGH the theme is fiction, its setting
is authentic and based on the best avail-
able historic data; and, with the aid of
carefully prepared foot-notes and a thorough
alphabetical glossary, the book will serve the
dual purpose of entertainment and instruction.
The interesting life, religious rites and com-
prehensive philosophies, habits, customs and
social forms, the art, artistry and architecture
of this ancient people who so extensively influ-

enced the civilizations of Europe (and it is
believed by some, of Egypt, Persia, and the Far
East), are all treated with appreciative con-
sideration, the result of nearly ten years of
exhaustive research.

Reincarnation, that beautiful and poetic con-
ception of the Vedic and Buddhistic Hindu, is
used to evolve the plot attractively and it affords
ample opportunity for vivid and dramatic
exploitation.

The action is quick and effective, the por-
trayal of human passion sincere and vigorous,
the incidents are heart-gripping, while the love
motive, tender and moving, binds the plot as
with a band of purest gold.

If the reader thinks these statements are
dangerously near the margin where modesty
ceases, it is hoped judgment will be suspended
until perusal of the work results in full acquittal.

The book is made in the most approved style
and taste, so that its externals make an appeal
artistically, as the contents are expected to do
intellectually.

©pinions of Experts

MARION MILLS MILLER, LiU.D. (Princeton)

"I read the manuscript of your novel, Rudra, at one
sitting with unflagging, indeed, with increasing interest, for
the plot is so strongly builded that every development in it
not only fulfilled but exceeded my anticipation. In the
manner of a Greek tragedian you have fore-shadowed the
end long before it is reached and thrittingly achieved the
expected, which to my mind is a greater triumph than agree-
ably surprising the reader with the unexpected.

"The design of the work is thoroughly artistic. Book I
leads up to a most dramatic climax, powerful in its outward
tragedy, and yet still more powerful in its psychological
import. Here the situation is created which Book II is to
solve; this it does in completely adequate fashion: Nemesis
pursues the hero to the very end, when expiation of his
crime is accomplished at a burst like that of the sun through
storm clouds, dissipating them, and giving assurance of
peace and joy.

"But the book is more than a novel. In addition to its
narrative interest, and to my mind enhancing this, it
possesses scholarly value, presenting in active, operative
form the customs and beliefs of ancient India for which
the reader heretofore has had to seek in the lifeless dis-
quisitions of antiquarians.

"The work therefore peculiarly appeals to the highest
class of fiction readers, those who appreciate artistic story-
telling and at the same time desire to carry away from the

perusal of every book, even a novel, a vivid impression of
things worth knowing. Theosophists in particular will
endorse the book, recommending it to those desiring infor-
mation about the origin and the nature of their philosophy.
Therefore the work is assured of an audience, even though
the 'fiction gluttons' pass it by as meat too nourishing for
their depraved taste.

M. M. MILLER."

PROFESSOR A. V. WILLIAMS JACKSON

(Holding Chair of Indo-European Literature, Columbia Uni-
versity, N. F.)

"I was interested in glancing over your romantic narra-
tive of the Rudra — a theme which gives good scope for
description as well as dramatic action — and it seems to me
that such a story will find appreciative readers among a
cultured circle, owing to the element of special attraction
which scenes laid in early India possess. Hearty thanks
for letting me have a glimpse of the prospective book, and
best wishes for its success.

A. V. WILLIAMS JACKSON."

MARVIN DANA, Esq., Literary Expert

"This story contains a novel and ingenious plot. More-
over, it is well written. . . . The book reveals a deal of
erudition on the writer's part. In this quality of the work
the merit is from the amount of interesting material here
given concerning ancient India's customs, religion, myths
and traditions. . . . Personally I have derived much
pleasure from the manuscript, since its theme and its
setting alike make particular appeal to me.

MARVIN DANA."
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mined man, of dominating personality and iron will, leaves a faithful
wife for another woman. 12 mo, cloth. Illustrated from scenes in
the play. Net $1.25.

THE WRITING ON THE WALL

The Rocky Mountain News : " This novelization of OLGA NETHER-
SOLE'S play tells of Trinity Church and its tenements. It is a
powerful, vital novel." i-'mo, doth. Illustrated. 50 cents.

THE OLD FLUTE PLAYER

Based on CHARLES T. DAZEY'S play, this story won the
friendship of the country very quickly. The Albany Times-Union:
"Charming enough to become a classic." 12010, cloth. Illustrated.
50 cents.

THE FAMILY

Of this book (founded on the play by ROBERT HOBART DAVIS),
The Portland (Oregon) Journal said: "Nothing more powerful has
recently been put between the covers of a book." 121110, cloth.
Illustrated. 50 cents.

THE SPENDTHRIFT

The Logansport (Ind.) Journal : "A tense story, founded on PORTER
EMERSON BROWNE'S play, is full of tremendous situations,
and preaches a great sermon." tamo, cloth bound, with six illus-
trations from scenes in the play. 50 cents.

IN OLD KENTUCKY

Based upon CHARLES T. DAZEY'S well-known play, which hag
been listened to with thrilling interest by over seven million people.
"A new and powerful novel, fascinating in its rapid action. Its
touching story is told more elaborately and even more absorbingly
than it was upon the stage." — Nashville American. i2mo, doth.
Illustrated. 50 cents.

Popular Detective Stories
by Fergus Hume

Claude Duval of '95

Coin of Edward VII, A

Disappearing Eye, The

Green Mummy, The

Lady Jim of Curzon Street

Mandarin's Fan, The

Mystery of a Hansom Cab, The

Opal Serpent, The

Pagan's Cup, The

Rainbow Feather, The

Red Window, The

Sacred Herb, The

Sealed Message, The

Secret Passage, The

Solitary Farm, The

Yellow Holly, The

Peacock of Jewels, The

Popular edition, i2mo, cloth. Per volume, 50 cents

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY

Los Angeles

This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.

Form L9-Series 4939

R L F

SEE SPINE FOR BARCODE NUMBER

PR
6007